


A Long and Irritating Friendship

by RileyWilliamsJr



Series: A Few of Merlin's Abrupt Intrusions into the Wizarding World [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Generally, History, Humor, Light-Hearted, Multi, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 32,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28526526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyWilliamsJr/pseuds/RileyWilliamsJr
Summary: Albus Dumbledore had met some strange and fascinating individuals in his long life, but he had never expected to discover that some of them would turn out to be the very same person. This entity appeared in his life over and over again: to help him out of scrapes, to give him strange but useful advice, to bring him on a new adventure. And sometimes, it seemed that he turned up purely for the purpose of making a nuisance of himself. Years passed before Albus finally learned his true name—a name that, like most magical children, he had heard many times before.What happened afterwards, though, was not anything that Albus would ever have imagined.(Companion to "A Brief Re-emergence from the Shadows," but can be read independently.)(Updated Mondays and Fridays.)
Relationships: Aberforth Dumbledore & Albus Dumbledore & Ariana Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore & Merlin (Merlin), Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Merlin (Merlin) & Everyone, Merlin (Merlin) & Harry Potter, Merlin (Merlin) & Newt Scamander, Merlin (Merlin) & Nicolas Flamel, That saves me some time
Series: A Few of Merlin's Abrupt Intrusions into the Wizarding World [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089662
Comments: 622
Kudos: 540





	1. December 1890 - Godric's Hollow, West Country, England

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everyone! I am, apparently, back from my hiatus (as I am choosing to retroactively call it) earlier than expected. If you’ve commented on one of my stories since I’ve been gone, thank you for your support, and I’ll try to reply to as many as I can in the next few days—as you might imagine, they’ve begun to pile up in my absence. If you haven’t seen me here before, welcome to the story! There are several others available if you want more of the same. If you’re a returning reader, welcome back, and I look forward to catching up with you in the comments! I hope all of you enjoy the new story.
> 
> This will be about twenty-five chapters long, because brevity escapes me, and it’s a little different from the others in format (but not in style). As the summary implies, this story will be more centered on Merlin and Dumbledore than the others, though the regular Harry Potter cast will become more involved later on. The chapters are often a bit shorter (particularly the first one), but vary pretty widely in length. Finally, a disclaimer: we’re going to be passing through a lot of time very quickly, and historical accuracy is going to be tenuous because I am not, in fact, a two hundred-year-old Englishman and can’t reliably replicate the speaking style. So, I’m doing my best here, but if you happen to see any heinous mistakes, anachronisms, or Americanisms (deepest apologies), do feel free to let me know, as always.
> 
> That should about cover it. Please excuse the long note. Oh yeah, and happy new year to anyone who uses the Gregorian calendar! To everyone else, happy ordinary Sunday!

* * *

Godric’s Hollow was, almost certainly, the worst place in the world. It was boring, and isolated, and cold. There were no other children his age in the village: no one to talk to at all, in fact, apart from the strange woman down the road who spent her days holed up in her little house reading, and her nights out in the garden digging or brewing potions. Technically, though, he wasn’t allowed to talk to her. He wasn’t _allowed_ to talk to anyone, or leave the house, or make any loud sounds, just in case it set off his little sister.

Albus kicked a pebble and it clacked down the stone path. Just because he was the oldest, that didn’t mean he couldn’t take a bit of a walk, did it? He’d taken care of his many chores. He had his coat on and everything. He trudged down the path, shoes crunching pleasantly on the rocks, idly humming to himself as he mused.

“Good morning,” said a musical voice.

Albus looked up: she was out in the garden today, for some reason. He didn’t question it, merely happy to have someone to talk to other than Abe, who was only six, and a nuisance besides.

“Morning, Miss Bagshot,” he said politely, walking up to her garden fence.

She was sitting at a small table in the garden, drinking tea and wearing a shawl over her dress, but Albus quickly became more interested in the stranger sitting across from her. She was most likely slightly younger than Miss Bagshot, but was dressed in old-fashioned and somewhat worn clothing; her dark curls, too, were slightly messy, but most striking were her prominent cheekbones and bright blue, wide-set eyes.

She and Miss Bagshot stood up to greet him. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” said the latter. “How have you been?”

“Oh, quite well, Miss Bagshot,” he answered with a smile.

“I’m glad,” she said earnestly. “Albus, this is my friend Marlène Eldore; she’s visiting from Paris.”

“And you must be young master Dumbledore,” said Marlène with a slight accent, leaning down to shake his hand. She was unusually tall, he noticed, and her wide, genuine smile set him at ease despite himself.

“Yes, miss. How do you do?”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man,” she said with a grin. “I bet you can do magic already, can’t you?”

Albus met her eyes sharply; they twinkled with golden sparks in the morning light, and he got the unsettling impression that she was staring straight into his soul.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“Just a feeling, I suppose,” she replied, still smiling in that soft way he had seen on his mother’s face once or twice. “I knew a boy much like you, once.”

Before he could stop himself, Albus asked, “Why are you sad?”

But she didn’t react as if she were offended; instead, she gently responded, “What makes you ask that?”

Albus scuffed his shoe in the dirt for a moment, but was feeling brave enough to answer honestly. “Only people who are sad smile so easily.”

As if to prove his point, she beamed at him again. “Not sad,” she said. “More… wistful.”

“What does that mean?”

She considered. “Well, I suppose it’s a happy kind of sad.”

“Would you like to come in for a cup of tea, perhaps?” Miss Bagshot asked him, probably finding his questions strange.

“No thank you, miss,” he answered quickly. “I was just stopping by to say hello. But thank you for introducing me to your friend.”

Miss Bagshot smiled warmly; Miss Eldore looked as serene as ever.

“Good day, then,” she said, tucking a few stray locks behind one slightly protuberant ear. “Perhaps we shall meet again one day.”

Albus thought privately that this sounded less like an idle courtesy and more like a premonition of some kind, but perhaps she was just a bit odd that way.

In either case, he merely said, “I certainly hope so, miss,” before turning back to continue down the lane.

He noticed absently that it had been true; he _did_ hope to meet her again. She was the most interesting thing he had seen since his arrival in Godric’s Hollow.


	2. October 1892 - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

Albus took to Hogwarts instantly. While he had half-expected to be sorted into Ravenclaw (or perhaps even Slytherin, though he would not have admitted it aloud), he was quite happy to be in Gryffindor house. He was doing well in his classes already, and even spent much of his free time in the library studying topics of personal interest, or out on the grounds practicing his spellwork. Still, he had made a fair number of friends already, including Elphias, whom he had agreed to help with his Transfiguration homework after school today. The poor boy still had pockmarks and somewhat green-tinged skin from the Dragonpox he was getting over, and was having difficulty getting anyone else to so much as speak to him.

“Well,” said Elphias, scratching his head as they walked, “how vicious do you imagine a match is, exactly?”

“Vicious?” said Albus as they waited for the stairs to shift again. “Oh, are you working out the Transfiguration formula?”

“Yes, I thought it might help. I can never seem to get the match to turn into a needle—although it did get a bit smaller the last time…”

“Well, it’s an inanimate object, so it’s not as if it’s liable to attack anyone; but on the other hand, matches do have a tendency to catch fire.”

“Afternoon, Dumbledore,” said a Gryffindor boy, catching up to them but keeping a safe distance from Elphias. Albus recognised him, though they hadn’t been formally introduced.

“Afternoon,” he replied, opening the door to the Defence classroom and allowing the others to enter first.

“Thanks. Say,” the boy added, pausing just inside the room, which was still half-empty, “we were thinking of forming an inter-house social and academic club just for first and second years; thought you might be interested. No Muggleborns allowed, of course,” he added, in a tone that suggested this was some sort of inside joke. “They’ll have their own, I expect.”

“Thank you for the offer,” said Albus politely, “but despite anything you may have heard to the contrary, I would prefer not to align myself with any exclusionary groups.” He smiled serenely at the confused-looking boy.

“Hold on,” said a nearby Slytherin, twisting around in his seat to join their conversation. “Surely Percival Dumbledore’s son isn’t a Mudblood lover?”

“Hoi!” came a shout from the front of the classroom. Professor Emrys, who had apparently been there the entire time, levelled a piercing stare at the Slytherin boy. “No slurs in my classroom. This is a school, not a tavern,” he said gruffly, voice faintly accented. “Everybody has a right to be here, regardless of their heritage; I’ll thank you to focus on your studies and allow other students to do the same.”

Albus was fairly sure none of the other professors had this sort of policy, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. Neither of the boys from the club spoke again, so Albus and Elphias took their seats near the front of the room.

It was only a few weeks into term, but Albus had already taken particular notice of the Defence professor. He was rather a towering man, though he also appeared to be ancient. His hair and beard were long and pure white, and the latter was braided like a Viking’s, though that was probably just to keep it out of the way. He always wore long, plain robes, but Albus could tell he was quite thin—and he was remarkably sprightly, too, judging by his tendency to sprint down hallways after magically animated objects, various magical creatures (particularly Peeves), and even the occasional wayward student.

What interested Albus the most, however, was his unusual mastery of both wandless and wordless magic; which is why, today, he had resolved to stay after class today to ask him about it. Perhaps, if he was persuasive enough, he could even convince the professor to give him a few lessons.

Today, they were learning to perform the Wand-Lighting Charm, _Lumos_ , which Albus had learned from his mother and had already used several times this term to continue reading past curfew. He normally wouldn’t want to show off, but given what he was planning to ask, he only made one failed attempt before performing the spell correctly.

Beside him, Elphias sighed, not having managed it yet himself.

Albus shrugged sheepishly. “My mum uses that one all the time,” he explained. “She keeps losing things.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Professor Emrys watching with a smirk that indicated he probably knew exactly what Albus was doing; but Albus found he didn’t mind all that much.

When the bell sounded for lunch, Albus made his excuses to Elphias as planned and approached the professor, who was once again having problems with his possessions overzealously fulfilling their intended function.

“Do you have a moment, Professor?” he asked, watching curiously as a quill scribbled nonsense on a disturbingly enthusiastic piece of parchment.

Emrys looked up. “Ah, the little Dumbledore, hello again. Of course, what do you need?”

“I’m not little,” said Albus automatically.

Emrys smiled. “Of course you are. But you won’t be little for long, so you’d better take advantage of it while it lasts.”

“Erm… yes, Professor. Well, I’m very eager to learn, sir, so you see, I’ve been getting a bit ahead of myself in my studies outside of class, and I was wondering if you wouldn’t consider meeting with me after school once or twice for a supplementary lesson of sorts, if it isn’t too much of an imposition.”

“I see.” Emrys leaned against his desk. “And what topics did you have in mind, pray tell?”

“Well, sir, I’ve noticed you have an affinity for wandless and non-verbal magic, which is a particular academic goal of mine. You might perhaps judge it too advanced for me, but in either case, I would very much like to work up to that.”

“Ah,” Emrys replied tranquilly, and paused, studying Albus as if examining the contents of his brain. Albus waited patiently.

“I don’t see why not,” the professor relented. “But we’ll have to start with the basics. And if your grades begin to falter, I will have no choice but to put an end to the lessons.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well.” Finally noticing the errant quill, Emrys snatched it off the page and deposited it in a desk drawer. “We can begin tomorrow, if you are ready. Perhaps at six o’clock?”

“Yes, Professor, I shall be there,” said Albus quickly, trying to contain his excitement. “Thank you, sir.”

“Well.” Emrys sniffed. “This _is_ a school, after all.”


	3. November 1894 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

Albus continued going to Emrys’s office long after their “official” lessons had tapered off, becoming something more akin to unstructured question-and-answer sessions—and even, eventually, conversations between friends.

“You know, Albus,” the professor said one day, sitting behind his desk with a fresh cup of tea, “you don’t have to study _everything_. Every sorcerer has strengths, preferences, difficulties… Personally, I prefer elemental magic, and I’m really quite rubbish at complicated spells. Don’t you have something that interests you particularly?”

“I don’t know. Defence, perhaps? And anything really advanced interests me. I suppose I like the challenge.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” said Emrys wryly.

“I want to learn _everything_. Or at least try it all.” He leaned forward in his chair, setting his teacup down. “I want to be the _best_ , Professor.”

“Why would you want that?”

Albus frowned at the question. “Why wouldn’t I? If you’re going to start something, don’t you want to finish it perfectly?”

“Certainly not,” said Emrys mildly. “I’d spend my entire life on one task if I did that.”

“Well, maybe not _perfect_ ,” Albus allowed. “I just want to strive for… excellence. Yes, I suppose that’s it. I want to do something meaningful with my life, something worth remembering.”

“Do you know what you’d like that thing to be?”

“Well… no,” he admitted. “Not yet. That’s why I want to study everything I possibly can! I suppose you’re right, after all. No one can _really_ be the best; it’s not exactly a measurable benchmark. Well, I suppose Merlin might have been the best wizard—that’s what everyone says—but that was so long ago, no one can really know for certain.”

Emrys choked on his tea and coughed slightly before responding. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” he managed. “Those are merely legends, and legends are notorious for exaggeration.”

Albus frowned. “You don’t mean he wasn’t real, do you?”

“Er—no. He was… almost certainly real. It’s merely the tales of his most remarkable deeds that are in question.”

“Like what?”

“Well—I don’t know—that’s beside the point. I only mean to say that you ought not concern yourself with him; his time is long past.”

“Actually,” said Albus, to Emrys’s continued consternation, “I’ve been meaning to ask about that. Doesn’t it seem a bit odd to you that he simply disappears without a trace, and no one—in one thousand, four hundred years—has ever managed to locate so much as his grave, his wand, his writings, any part of Camelot, any artefact at all that might have belonged to him? And besides, how could he have attended Hogwarts? It was built at least four hundred years after his birth.”

“Er—yes, that Slytherin myth is generally considered to have been debunked.”

“Yes, but the question remains, what exactly happened to him? Why don’t we know anything? Was there some sort of cover-up? You see, I suspect that _perhaps_ , with all his power and knowledge, he discovered—or possibly created—something that the government doesn’t want us to know about.”

“Erm.” Professor Emrys looked at Albus as if he had suggested the sun was actually a giant glow-worm. “It _was_ fourteen centuries ago. Things are bound to be lost to time.”

Albus was still suspicious. “I suppose. But I smell a conspiracy.”

“Well, then perhaps you ought to work in the Ministry. Then you could—”

Albus scrunched his nose. “I think not! One does not achieve excellence in the government, Professor.”

Emrys snorted. “Well, I shan’t argue with you there, Mr. Dumbledore. I only thought you might be interested in research, possibly even historical or archaeological.”

He perked up at that. “Maybe! You know, sir, I was doing a bit of light reading the other day—” He ignored Emrys’s dubious look— “and apparently, they discovered that both Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin were over six feet tall. Did you know that? The author said that powerful witches and wizards were often physically larger or stronger than their contemporaries.”

“Yes, that is sometimes true,” said Emrys, “but in the Middle Ages, that wouldn’t have been entirely unusual. Ancient humans were, on the whole, somewhat larger than you—than we are now.”

“Ah,” said Albus sagely. “That explains why you’re so tall then, sir.”

That startled a laugh out of the professor, as Albus’s stealthier witticisms often did. “Well, I suppose you’re not entirely wrong there, Mr. Dumbledore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter again this time, but the next one is at least twice as long! :)


	4. February 1896 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

Albus had been looking forward to confronting the Boggart all term. Many of the other fourth years were either apprehensive or downright anxious, but it was an opportunity that few would ever experience otherwise, particularly in a safe, controlled setting like this. Even some professors had tried to talk Professor Emrys out of it, but he remained convinced that it would be an important exercise in personal growth. Albus found it odd, then, that Emrys was willing to grant exceptions or alternative exercises for those who requested it, but he didn’t ask why. Besides, very few students took him up on the offer.

They had all been required to practice the Boggart-Banishing Spell beforehand, and when the day finally arrived, Albus was only third in line, behind a Slytherin and another Gryffindor. Elphias, though willing to participate, hung back toward the end of the queue in hopes of drawing less attention to himself.

When the Slytherin girl stepped up to the trunk, Professor Emrys released the latch and stood aside, allowing the Boggart to escape and take the form of a tall column of licking flames.

“Riddikulus!” she shouted over the noise, and the flames quickly morphed into a clump of freakishly tall red and orange flowers.

The Gryffindor took two attempts to transform his vampire into a colony of bats (which, in Albus’s opinion, was hardly any less frightening than a vampire anyhow), and then it was Albus’s turn. He wasn’t quite sure what to expect, having guessed vaguely that his greatest fear might be academic failure, but that seemed much too abstract to be representable by a Boggart.

He stepped up to the group of bats, which were slowly collecting back together again. As he watched, they stilled and shifted into a very plain image: a low, somewhat rickety wooden fence, with its gate right in the middle, just in front of where Albus was standing. It took him a moment to realise that he was looking at the front gate to his own home in Godric’s Hollow.

The latch slid open ominously, inviting him to return to the cramped, quiet house, to settle back in and spend the rest of his days withering away in the meagre light that came through the gap in the drawn curtains.

Abruptly, Albus realised that a fair few seconds had elapsed. In a clear voice, he incanted the spell, imagining the swinging gate turning into a playground merry-go-round instead. To his relief, he managed it on the first try. Quickly stepping out of the queue to make way for the next student, he found himself surprisingly shaken—he supposed, though, that that was rather the point. But it wasn’t as if he hated his home or his family; he merely wanted more from life. Was that really so bad? His parents had had dreams too, once, but after Ariana’s attack, they both became shadows of their former selves, and Albus would likely never see his father again. But he would learn from their mistakes. He wouldn’t let things get in the way of his goals.

When Elphias was up, Albus shot him an encouraging smile. His Boggart was a swarm of insects, mostly spiders, which he dispatched (after only a brief moment of obvious panic) by transforming them all into marbles—which, while admittedly less alarming, was probably much more dangerous.

“That went better than I’d hoped,” he muttered to Albus when he joined him on the other side of the room.

“I told you you could do it,” Albus replied with an encouraging grin.

For the rest of the class, they watched the Boggart shift into a wide variety of creatures and objects—though, admittedly, none were quite so mundane as Albus’s. Elphias hadn’t asked yet what it meant, but Albus suspected he would have to prepare to answer questions about it later.

However, he was increasingly distracted by the question of what Professor Emrys’s greatest fear was. Despite how well he knew the man by now, he couldn’t so much as hazard a guess. It wasn’t the first time Albus had grown overly curious, as he was admittedly rather fond of snooping as a general pastime, but Emrys seemed to go out of his way to be mysterious. Albus hadn’t learned the professor's full name until second year, and was rather bewildered to discover that his first name, Ambrose, was merely a Latinized version of his surname (which itself was derived from that of an obscure Welsh mythological figure). Needless to say, he had his suspicions about that. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), he claimed to be Welsh, but Albus had met quite a few Welsh people and had yet to encounter an accent like Emrys’s.

Thus, Albus resolved to double back after class and do a _very_ small bit of snooping, just to see what form the Boggart took when no one else was around. It was only fair, after all, since Professor Emrys now knew all of _their_ greatest fears. He only prayed he wouldn’t get caught, since Emrys sometimes seemed to have eyes in the back of his head.

“Oh—Sorry, Elph,” said Albus, halting partway down the corridor after class. “There’s something I forgot to ask Professor Emrys. I’ll catch up with you, all right?”

“Sure. I’ll save you a seat in the Great Hall. Don’t be too long or all the good food will be gone!”

“I won’t,” Albus replied, already rushing back down the corridor.

When he turned the corner, he rummaged in his pocket for the Keyhole, a small gadget he had been working on for quite some time that allowed him to look through most walls—though it didn’t yet work on ones that were heavily enchanted. When he neared the classroom, he slowed down to mute his footsteps. He put the Keyhole up against the wall—as far from the actual door as he could get, in order to avoid being caught—and looked through the small hole in the centre.

To his excitement, he could indeed see his professor shuffling about the room, and could even hear muffled sounds through the gap. He wasn’t entirely sure what Emrys was doing, though. He was covering both eyes with one hand whilst nudging something along the stone floor with his foot. It was making a scraping sound, but Albus couldn’t see it from his vantage point.

“Go on then, get in the blasted box…” Emrys was muttering. Whatever the thing was, it seemed reluctant to move.

Eventually, Emrys gave up kicking the thing, but rather than reach down to touch it, he held out one hand and levitated it wandlessly, eyes still covered. As it rose into the air, Albus recognised it as an apparently ordinary, albeit rather large, crystal. It made no move to attack Emrys—or do anything at all, really—and it didn’t even appear to be particularly sharp. Albus couldn’t fathom why a Boggart would ever take this form. Emrys didn’t even seem particularly frightened of it, though he still refused to look at it as he lowered it back into the trunk and re-latched it.

“There,” Emrys said, finally opening his eyes. Albus was momentarily afraid the professor would see him even through the wall, but he didn’t appear to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Still, he continued watching for a moment in the hope that Professor Emrys would say or do something to explain the bizarre apparition. Alas, he merely muttered vaguely to himself as he read through his notes from the class. Perhaps he would remark upon Albus’s Boggart, though…

“Unsurprising,” Emrys murmured, flipping through pages; and then, “That’s not even scary, wonder what the story is there…”

Albus wondered how he had the audacity to claim someone else’s Boggart wasn’t scary when his own was an actual rock.

“Poor boy,” Emrys was saying now. “Can’t do much for him, he’s very nearly a Squib. Wish I could give him some of mine…”

Albus knew the boy he was talking about now: Boris, he thought his name was. He was a dedicated student, but still couldn’t seem to master the most basic of spells. Albus felt a little guilty for listening in now, and was about to turn away when he heard something interesting. He could hardly pick it up, the professor was so quiet now.

“—always picking on him,” Emrys muttered. “Actually, perhaps there is something I could…”

He trailed off, but through the Keyhole, Albus watched him move away from his desk to sit on the stone floor. What could he possibly be doing now?

Professor Emrys didn’t speak any further, which was noteworthy given his usual ramblings, grumblings, and general muttered narration. He cupped his hands in front of him as if holding something invisible and squeezed his eyes shut. He stayed that way for quite some time, and rather than driving Albus to boredom, it only fuelled his curiosity. Something _did_ seem to be happening in the cradle of Emrys’s hands: Albus almost thought he caught a glimpse of a pile of a substance like dust, but even on his tiptoes, he couldn’t get high enough to see above the professor’s clasped fingers.

If Albus hadn’t been utterly silent and attentive, he wouldn’t have heard the miniscule squeak that made the professor start. Emrys squeezed his eyes shut tight for a moment as if afraid to look, then blinked and looked down apprehensively into his hands.

Emrys beamed.

“Good lord, you’re so small!” he exclaimed, and held his creation up to his eyes to get a better look at it.

It did look like a pile of dust for a second. And then it shivered, and its tail twitched, and the tiny grey kitten squeaked again.

“You were meant to be fearsome,” Emrys told it in mock reproach.

The kitten mewed, and Emrys set it down on the floor to allow it to take its first steps. It immediately struggled towards him, as if instinctively aware that Emrys was its creator.

“No matter,” Emrys said. “No one will be able to hurt you; I’ll make sure of that. Once you’re a bit bigger, I’ll let you out in the castle and you can help me protect the students—especially the ones that don’t have as much magic as the others. If anyone picks on them, or gets up to any other tomfoolery, you just come and let me know, all right?”

The kitten mewed and he picked it back up. “Come on, let’s go get you some food. Now, what should I call you?” he wondered, standing back up. “Every creature ought to have a name.”

But Albus couldn’t watch any more, as Professor Emrys was quickly approaching the door. He took off down the hall, stowing the Keyhole back in his pocket, and only stopped running when he reached a more crowded area.

Slightly out of breath, he leaned against the nearest wall, hoping Emrys hadn’t caught wind of his presence.

What had he just witnessed? He must have missed something, because that was… beyond impossible. The _creation_ of life—not even Dark Magic could accomplish something like that. Necromancy, sure, but that cat had appeared out of thin air, Albus would swear to it! It looked very much as if Emrys had built it in his hands, with his mind, piece by piece. Was it an automaton of some kind? It had certainly looked real enough.

“All right, Dumbledore?” asked an older Gryffindor who was passing by.

“Yeah! Fine,” he replied quickly, and followed the flow of traffic down the corridor, wondering who on earth he could possibly ask about this.


	5. October 1896 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

Over the summer, Albus hadn’t forgotten what he’d seen. In fact, it had been more or less seared into his brain. He was certain, now, in spite of all his previous knowledge, that magic could accomplish things he had previously believed to be impossible. After all, if the creation of life itself was attainable, surely there was nothing that was truly impossible.

He had spent all summer researching this very topic as best he could, and dove immediately into the recesses of the Hogwarts library as soon as his fifth year began. To his growing frustration, there were hardly any texts at all that addressed the creation, from nothing, of a living thing: not a plant, not an animal, and certainly not a human being—a possibility that he shuddered to think about in spite of his curiosity. Surely not even Professor Emrys would attempt such a thing? Furthermore, what bearing, if any, did this have on the principal exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration?

The only relevant texts Albus could find were either fictional, mythological or at best highly speculative. Oddly enough, the “Emrys” figure came up again in his research. An entity worshipped by the ancient Druids, he (or sometimes “it” or even “she,” depending on the source of the text) was described as an either immortal or amortal magical creature, often humanoid in appearance, said to be the incarnation of magic itself in the mortal world. He was never described physically apart from a few mentions of golden eyes, nor were his exact origins explained, but he was sometimes referred to as “the boy” or “the sacred child,” especially in earlier texts.

There were a wide variety of tales recounting incredible magical feats, notably resurrection, stopping time, conjuring electrical storms, and creating plants and animals from thin air—generally, these seemed to be butterflies or other small, colourful things created for the entertainment of children. These could, of course, have been simple illusions or ephemeral likenesses, but unlike conjured animals, Professor Emrys’s cat, who was now called Nora, was alive, independent, and what’s more, growing. Nearly a full-grown cat now, she ate mice, chewed up unattended quills, drank from any available source of dripping water, sat on her favourite students’ laps, bolted through corridors in the middle of the night, and generally engaged in normal cat behaviour.

But she was also different—something slightly, unidentifiably _more_ than a cat. Apparently taking Professor Emrys’s instructions to heart, she had developed a habit of meowing insistently at students breaking even the most minor of rules (though how exactly she knew what those rules _were_ was a mystery); she even took to patrolling corridors on occasion, and she always seemed to be able to find Professor Emrys and drag him along with her by the hem of his robes to wherever the latest prank, escapade or brawl was taking place.

The fact that Emrys spoke to her as if she were capable of understanding him was really no indication as to whether she actually did or not, but sometimes she certainly _seemed_ to overhear the students who were planning mischief.

Though he had no evidence, Albus was certain that the reason she hadn’t disappeared yet, as conjured animals normally did after a time, was because she hadn’t been conjured at all, but _built_. The question was, where did her life force, her soul, come from? It was an accepted fact that life and death were a system of exchange. Even Merlin, one of the few wizards supposedly capable of resurrection (though this was very much in doubt), could not do so without exchanging a life for a life, though it had been theorized that human and animal lives were not interchangeable.

Perhaps, Albus thought, creation was different. After all, parents never had to perform a sacrifice to create a child; and wasn’t that its own sort of magic? Where, then, did his _own_ soul come from?

Now, obviously, Albus did not spend all his time thinking about Nora—or Miss Nora, as the more respectful students were beginning to call her. It just so happened that, on this particular occasion, his research found him sneaking into the library after hours; therefore, on his way back to Gryffindor Tower, watching out for Nora was more or less the _only_ thing on his mind.

Quietly, he approached a corner and peered around it before continuing down the corridor. Nora wasn’t the only one who might catch him, of course, but it just so happened that she had significantly better hearing than all the prefects who might be out tonight.

Turning another corner, Albus suddenly saw a moving figure at the end of the corridor: he quickly retreated behind the wall to hide. But upon reflection, it hadn’t been a cat, or even a ghost, but a boy—and not one he recognised as a student. Cautiously, he peered around the edge again. Yes, a boy, walking away from where Albus was hiding. This wasn’t the first time Albus had seen him, but he only ever appeared in empty corridors in the middle of the night, and Albus _swore_ he wasn’t a student in any of the four houses. He could never see him very well in the moonlight, but Albus would have guessed that he was a sixth- or seventh-year if he wasn’t always wearing Muggle clothing.

As the boy turned left up ahead, Albus weighed his options: follow the intruder and find out once and for all what he was up to, or go to bed and wonder about it for the next three years.

Albus renewed the muffling charm on his shoes and ran after the boy, stopping short just of the turn he had taken and peering past. He was still in sight, and didn’t seem to have noticed Albus’s presence.

After a few minutes of sneaking around, they reached the stairwell: that would make it harder to figure out where the boy was going, and much harder to follow without losing him and without being seen. Albus resolved to attempt it anyway, since he had come this far already and still had very little idea of where the intruder was going.

Albus got as close as he dared to watch his progress on the stairs, and finally caught a decent glimpse of his face as the stair shifted and changed the angle. He had dark hair and a pale, angular face, and for a moment Albus thought he looked distantly familiar. Still, he certainly wasn’t a student there (not least because no Hogwarts student, even a Muggleborn, would be caught dead wearing Muggle clothing in the corridors).

And then things got stranger. The boy stepped onto another flight of stairs, and when they started to move, he stretched out his hand—and the stone staircase ground to a halt. As Albus watched, mouth agape, the stairs returned to their former position and the boy continued indifferently on his way.

It was nearly safe to follow now, so Albus dashed out of his hiding place and carefully climbed the stairs after him, resolving to figure out that spell as soon as he had a free moment. He could already manage a few wandless spells, but nothing of that calibre—and he still needed an incantation, but he couldn’t hear the one the boy had used from this distance.

Upstairs, he finally caught sight of the intruder again. As he turned right, Albus sped up and followed, approaching the turn he had taken—and then, nothing. Albus had only lost sight of him for a split second, but now he was nowhere to be found in any of the hallways he could see. Throwing caution to the wind, he dashed down the corridor the boy ought to have been in and looked down the next turn, but he wasn’t there either.

A cat meowed loudly, and Albus jumped.

He sighed. “But there’s a non-student roaming the halls just down that way!” he whispered. “Go after _him_ , why don’t you?”

Nora sat down on the stone floor in front of him, yellow eyes expectant.

“Fine, I’ll go back to bed, just don’t call—”

“Good evening, Mr. Dumbledore,” said a familiar voice.

Albus whipped around, and there was Professor Emrys, appearing just as suddenly as the strange boy had vanished—and out of seemingly nowhere.

“Evening, Professor,” Albus managed.

“And to you too, Nora,” Emrys added. “So, Mr. Dumbledore, are your classes going well? Last I recall, you were having trouble choosing a topic for your History of Magic essay.”

“Erm, yes, sir,” said Albus, thrown off somewhat. “I believe I’ve decided to focus on mythological or unsubstantiated accounts of non-extant magical creatures.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nora wander off in the other direction.

“Ah, wonderful,” said Emrys, still speaking as if they were having a perfectly normal, casual conversation which was not taking place in a deserted corridor in the middle of the night. “I hope you’ve still had time to practice your nonverbal magic despite how busy you are this term. One never knows when it might come in handy.”

“Yes, Professor, I have.”

Emrys beamed. “Just as I expected. You’re a diligent young man.”

“Thank you, Professor, I do my best. Though, I really should be getting to bed…”

“Of course,” Emrys agreed, still smiling serenely. “Sleep well, then; and don’t let Nora catch you on the way there or she’ll wake everyone in the castle, I’m sure.”

“Yes, Professor. Good night.”


	6. August 1897 – Godric’s Hollow, West Country, England

“How’s your sister?” Miss Bagshot whispered, as if worried the ferns would overhear her.

“She’s just fine, Miss Bagshot,” Albus answered, before amending, “Well, she’s doing as well as can be expected.”

“Please, call me Bathilda. You’re nearly of age now. But I am glad to hear she’s doing well. No episodes, then?”

“Not recently, no.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.”

She offered him the biscuit tin again; Albus took one, having learned by now that it was pointless to attempt to refuse.

“Thank you. I am glad you and my mother are getting along these days,” he said.

“So am I,” she sighed. “Merlin knows she needs some support. I know she’s very happy that you’re back home for the summer holiday.”

Albus hummed noncommittally and shooed a butterfly away from his teacup.

“Odd, isn’t it?” she said.

“What is?”

“The butterflies, of course. They gather around here every so often, couldn’t tell you why. It’s funny, they always seem to turn up just after Marlène leaves; it’s too bad she keeps missing them. I always tell her I’ll show her the next time she visits.”

“Is that your friend from France?” Albus asked.

“Right—yes, Marlène Eldore. You met her once, I don’t know if you remember.”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Oh, that’s nice. She asks after you sometimes; it seems you made a good impression. But she’s back in Paris, now, helping a friend with some research. Speaking of which, did I tell you how much I enjoyed your essay on trans-species Transfiguration in _Transfiguration Today?”_

“Yes, I received your letter. It was most kind. In fact, now that you mention it, I have begun studying magical experiments through history—such as alchemy, for example—and I was wondering if I might ask you a few questions on the topic. I don’t know of it is of any particular interest to you…”

“Indeed it is!” she said quickly, leaning forward in her chair. “Many great witches and wizards have tested the bounds of magic, which is what gave us the magical laws and standards that we have today. Were you thinking of any era in particular?”

“Not precisely. But I did come across… rumours about witches and wizards that attempted to go beyond the bounds of alchemy and necromancy—to _create_ life rather than extend or exchange it. It is rather a strange and uncanny subject, to be sure, but it interests me precisely because there is so little research on it.”

Miss Bagshot shook her head. “I’m afraid that would seem to be entirely the stuff of legends. What we would today call conjuring stemmed from research into this very topic, but no one has come close to actually creating a living thing. No, it is only figures like Merlin who were said to be able to do such things, though most dismiss even that as myth.”

“Merlin? I read that he was rumoured to have performed resurrections, but I heard nothing of this.”

“Well, who knows anymore what the truth might be, but I have read accounts of his trading one soul for another in order to revive a human being, as well as his ability to manifest plants—even fruit-bearing trees—from apparently nothing. Now, whether plants qualify as ‘life’ is up for debate, but it would nonetheless be remarkable if it were true.”

“Yes… it certainly would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Since this chapter is super short, I'm uploading two at the same time (6 and 7, to be clear), so, bonus chapter coming up next!


	7. December 1898 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

It appeared that this year’s obligatory Merlin-related assignment would be Albus’s coursework over Christmas break. He sighed, reviewing the research requirements as he walked down the corridor. Virtually every class, in every year, dedicated at least a lecture or two to Merlin and his many accomplishments, which in turn meant that he had to do at least one homework assignment per year that focused on the legendary warlock. It was fortunate that he seemed to have done so many things during his lifetime; otherwise, Albus might have lodged an official protest by now.

Well, not _every_ class. Professor Emrys’s Defence classes were the only ones in which the topic of Merlin was studiously eschewed. In fact, Albus was beginning to wonder whether the man didn’t harbour some sort of grievance against the legendary figure, since he seemed to avoid discussing him at all costs. On one memorable occasion, he had even jumped out a window rather than engage a visiting Ministry official in a discussion about the origins of the prestigious Order of Merlin. It had been a ground floor window, but still.

Albus, of course, chose to use this information to torment his professor. It is for this reason that he could be found strolling down to Emrys’s office on a pleasant Saturday morning rather than playing a friendly game of Quidditch with his dorm-mates and their friends.

“Hello, Professor,” he said cheerfully when he poked his head through the perpetually half-open door.

Emrys, who seemed to be turning his office upside-down looking for something, popped up from behind a large stack of books upon hearing Albus’s voice.

“Ah! Morning, Dumbledore, what brings you here on a Saturday?”

“Oh, I just had a couple of questions I thought you might be able to answer,” he replied, picking his way through the mess. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing to your office?”

There was a sharp thump, a muffled curse, and Emrys reappeared from out of a bookcase, glaring at Albus and rubbing the back of his head. With a deep sigh, he navigated through the room to sit behind his desk as Albus moved some papers to take a seat across from him.

“I tell you, I don’t like the swearing…” Emrys muttered.

Albus smiled innocently.

Emrys glowered. “Well, if you must know, I was looking for that Invisibility Hat I was working on. Either I’ve finally gotten the spellwork right or the thing’s simply walked off on its own, and I can’t tell which.”

“Sorry,” said Albus, “Invisibility _Hat?_ “

“Yeah, a cloak would be rather bothersome to wear if it were hot outside, don’t you think?”

“I… suppose?”

Personally, Albus thought that the heat was probably low on the list of priorities for someone who was in need of an invisibility device, but he kept that to himself.

“In any case,” said Emrys, making a futile attempt to re-organise his desk, “what was your question?”

“Ah, yes,” said Albus seriously. “I have an assignment on Merlin—” Emrys rolled his eyes. ”—and Sir Cadogan was just telling me that, when he was a young knight, Merlin would occasionally turn up with a mace and rampage through the training grounds to make sure the knights were up to snuff. Since you’re the Defence teacher, I thought you might be the expert on the efficacy of such methods.”

Sir Cadogan _had_ actually told him that, and though Albus doubted it was true, he thought it might at least provoke an interesting reaction.

He turned out to be right.

“Wha— _rampage_?” Emrys grumbled unintelligibly for a moment before shaking his head and adding, “Don’t listen to a word that man tells you. As a matter of fact, don’t listen to knights, as a general rule. Scoundrels, the lot of them. Except for Sir Lancelot. And possibly Sir Leon, on a good day.”

“Who’s that?”

“Never mind. Sir Cadogan and his rumours… I ought to have that portrait removed.”

“Why?” asked Albus. “He’s a valuable primary source. All of the secondary sources—” He indicated the stack of books in his satchel; “—they have so much conflicting information that I can hardly keep it straight. Do you know I’ve read about Merlin’s having had affairs with Morgana, Nimueh, the Lady of the Lake and even Queen Guinevere? How did he even have the time? Personally, I don’t believe half of it.”

Albus watched with poorly contained mirth as Professor Emrys’s white hair seemed to puff up with consternation. Strange rumours about Merlin were the easiest way to rile him up.

“Wha—pff—” he spluttered. “What sorts of books have you been reading, boy?”

Albus shrugged. “Just course material… textbooks… recommended resources. That sort of thing. Did you know the Order of Merlin started out as a Muggle rights organisation?”

“Of course I knew that! And frankly, if I had any say in it—” He shook his head. “Well, never mind. No one’s interested in my opinion, anyhow.”

“Oh, but I am, Professor,” said Albus, egging him on. “What do you make of the rumour that Merlin was so powerful he could bring people back from the dead?”

“Now—now hold on—” said Emrys, waving a hand agitatedly. “That’s not a question of power, you know, merely opportunity. And it’s not as if he had very many of those—or, that’s what I hear, anyway. Why are we even talking about him?”

“About whom?” asked Albus, who had previously noted Professor Emrys’s unwillingness to so much as pronounce Merlin’s name.

Emrys glared. “You know what I mean. Why you’ve got to come in here and harass an old man on his day off…”

“Oh, come on, Professor,” said Albus, giving up the game. “What have you got against Merlin, anyway? It’s not as if everyone hasn’t noticed already. Has he done something evil I haven’t heard about?”

“I’ve got nothing against him! Who says I do?”

Albus’s eyes widened as an idea struck him. “You’re not… related to him, are you?”

“What? No, of course I’m not—”

“You look a lot like him…”

Emrys snorted. “You have no idea what he looks like. No one does.”

Albus narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you mean _looked?_ ”

The professor froze. “Right, yes, obviously. That’s what I meant to say. You’re beginning to mix me up, Dumbledore. The point is, I simply don’t find him as interesting as everyone else seems to these days. And you shouldn’t get caught up in that trend either, young man. It’ll pass soon enough.”

“Trend?” Albus snorted. “How old _are_ you, Professor?”

Emrys groaned. “Avalon, Albus, go play Quidditch or something, won’t you? Always in here, being a pain in my neck…”

Albus flashed him his most charismatic grin. Emrys liked having him here as much as Albus enjoyed their odd discussions; he had no doubt of that. But he did agree to drop the subject.

“Oh, all right. What if I help you look for your Invisibility Hat? No doubt my eyes are better than yours; perhaps I could locate it.”

Emrys rolled his eyes. “Very well, if you must. Just leave that pile there alone, there are any number of things that might be liable to try and grab you…”


	8. June 1899 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

In a matter of days, Albus was set to graduate from Hogwarts with a number of distinctions, having accomplished nearly everything he had wanted at school, and scheduled to depart for the Grand Tour with Elphias soon after graduation. Yet, there was still a not insignificant part of him that would be sad to leave Hogwarts.

He couldn’t quite understand it. There was certainly no reason to stay, and while he enjoyed helping his fellow students on occasion, he had no real desire to become a teacher. He was going to see the world! He would meet people from all backgrounds, visit cities erected by great societies… and when he returned, he was going to make something of himself. He would strive to make the world a better place, to leave his mark on it, and to live a long and eventful life. He respected his professors and was grateful for all they had given him, but he did not want to stay here among them.

As Albus strolled down the corridor, lost in thought, enjoying the warm afternoon and humming softly to himself, he caught sight of Professor Emrys up ahead, as if his thoughts had summoned him.

“Professor?” he called, but not loudly enough; Emrys continued on his way and disappeared into the next hallway.

When Albus caught up with him, he made to follow in the same direction, but Emrys had disappeared. That was odd. He hadn’t seemed to be in a hurry. Albus continued down the corridor and checked the next turn, but there was nothing. He hadn’t been intending to seek Emrys out, but found himself wanting to talk to someone despite himself. He turned back and checked again: nothing. He sighed, giving up, and turned on his heel yet again to continue wandering.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a door. Albus squinted at it, quite certain it hadn’t been there before. Well, he supposed it was fitting: he’d learn one last secret of Hogwarts before leaving forever. He opened the door and stepped inside.

The room he found himself in was unbelievably, impossibly enormous, yet still managed to be cluttered from floor to ceiling, in all directions, with miscellaneous junk.

“What on earth…” he whispered, voice echoing eerily among the towers of broken furniture, discarded treasures, and disintegrating books.

“Albus?”

Professor Emrys’s gravelly voice came from Albus’s left, and after a moment, the professor himself appeared.

“Sorry, sir, I was… What is this place?”

Emrys shrugged. “Just a room that comes and goes. As you can see, people leave things here sometimes; although I wouldn’t suggest doing that if you ever intend to come back and retrieve it.”

“Is it… safe?”

“It is if you’re with me.” Emrys considered him. “Well, now that you’re here… come on. I have something to show you.”

Albus followed readily, traversing the maze-like paths through the ancient detritus until the two of them came to an old, dusty mirror with an apparently nonsensical inscription across the top. His mind ratcheted up to double speed as he ran through possibilities for how to decode the words.

Beside him, Professor Emrys sighed. “It’s a mirror, boy. Don’t analyse it, _look_ in it.”

Albus raised his eyebrows at him, but dutifully lowered his gaze to the cloudy glass. As he looked, Professor Emrys’s reflection was strangely obscured, and Albus abruptly realised that it was fading away—he whipped around to check on his professor, who was standing there solid as ever, smiling patiently at him.

“Go on.”

Frowning, Albus looked back at the mirror. Emrys’s reflection was still absent, but Albus’s was intact—though it wasn’t frowning like he was. It wasn’t even wearing the same clothes. Albus’s reflection was taller than he was, and dressed in fine fabrics which were adorned with a medal of some kind. The figure gave off an aura of power that was palpable even through the glass, and when he raised his hand, sparks erupted from his fingers in a wandless spell that illuminated everything around him, casting a glow so bright that Albus had to squint and turn away.

The real Albus turned back to Professor Emrys, who was watching him rather than the mirror.

“Can you see that?” Albus asked.

“No. Everyone sees something different. Do you know now what it is for?”

Albus hesitated. “It shows us… our ambition. What we want from life.”

“Sometimes,” said Emrys, looking back into the glass. “The inscription is backwards. It reads: ‘I show not your face but your heart’s desire.’ It is said to reflect the deepest, most desperate desire that you hold—even if you yourself don’t know what that is.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Emrys, still staring into the mirror. “I found it in the vault of a castle that had been abandoned, many years ago. I brought it here to hide it away because of what I found lying in front of it.”

“And what was that, sir?”

Emrys met Albus’s eyes again. “Skeletons. The people who lived there had wasted away in front of this mirror, Dumbledore, sitting and wishing for something they didn’t—or couldn’t—have. You must not make the same mistake.”

Shaken, Albus looked back at his cheerful reflection. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Something told me you should know. Certainly, _someone_ should. And I believe you are too strong to be taken in by it. But you must beware.”

“I understand.” He paused. “Professor, may I ask—what do you see in the mirror?”

“Oh, nothing grand,” Emrys answered with a sad smile. “I see my home.”

Albus wondered if that were true, and almost felt like laughing when he thought of the irony that Emrys’s greatest desire was the same as Albus’s own Boggart.

“Well,” said Albus, “I’m glad I got to see this place before I graduate. It feels strange, to be leaving after all this time.”

“Hogwarts has been a home to all of us,” said Emrys. “It’s always a bit sad to leave it behind; but that’s all right.”

As always, Emrys seemed to hear what Albus had really meant.

“I suppose I’ll miss it,” he admitted eventually, then added: “And I certainly think I’ll miss our lessons, Professor. Like this one.”

Emrys smiled. “So will I. I told you you wouldn’t be little forever, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir, you did. I suppose you were right.”

“I’m always right,” Emrys scoffed. “Here’s another prediction for you,” he added, and paused. “You’ll be a great man someday, Dumbledore. You’re already a good one, which is far more important. Just don’t lose one in search of the other.”

Albus nodded soberly.

“Come on,” said Emrys, leading the way out of the room. “We’ve spent far too much time in here already.” When the door had shut behind them, Emrys stopped before continuing on his way. “I’ve been glad to know you,” he said. “Perhaps we shall meet again someday.”

“I hope so, sir,” said Albus.

He stood there for a few moments, in front of the now blank wall, as his teacher walked away and turned the corner, wondering where his sudden sense of déjà vu had come from.

“Albus?” called another voice.

“Elph?” Albus turned back the way he had come, and ran into Elphias in the adjacent corridor.

“There you are,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Couldn’t find you anywhere; it’s nearly time for dinner.”

“Oh, right. Suppose I lost track of time.” They walked down toward the Great Hall at a leisurely pace.

“Where were you, anyway?” asked Elphias.

Albus hummed. “Oddest thing,” he said eventually. “I got lost looking for the loo and stumbled upon a rather grand one that I’m quite sure wasn’t there before.”


	9. July 1899 – Godric’s Hollow, West Country, England

When Albus heard that Bathilda had another visitor, he hadn’t even bothered to go and see whether Miss Eldore was back. After his mother’s funeral, he had no desire to see anyone; and now that he was taking care of Ariana, he didn’t have the time, either. Aberforth did his part—he had always been better with her—but he had his studies, and when he wasn’t doing that, he was getting into scuffles with the neighbours that Albus then had to deal with.

It was on one of these irritating occasions that, as Albus was walking back to their home after placating an offended neighbour, he encountered a stranger on the path. This was remarkable in and of itself, given the _total insignificance_ of their village, but this wasn’t just any stranger: this was a beautiful, foreign stranger.

…One who had noticed him staring. The young man grinned rakishly and intercepted Albus’s path. Wonderful.

“Hello,” said the stranger, brushing golden hair away from his eyes. “I haven’t seen you before; do you live in the village?”

“Yes, just up the road there,” said Albus. “I suppose I’ve been a bit busy lately; I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance.”

“Well, that must be rectified immediately,” he declared, extending a hand for Albus to shake. “My name’s Gellert. I’m staying with my Aunt Bathilda, in the house on the corner.”

“I’m Albus,” he replied. “Albus Dumbledore. Pleased to meet you.”

It had, to put it mildly, escalated from there. Soon, Albus was going out to visit him every day; and then those visits stretched longer and longer, and then they weren’t sitting in Bathilda’s garden anymore, but strolling through the village, and down the paths in the nearby wood, and lying in the grass and talking for hours—and sometimes, not talking at all.

They rarely went to Albus’s house. He felt vaguely guilty about forcing Aberforth to shoulder more of their sister’s burden, but he was already there at home studying, anyway. Aberforth met Gellert once or twice: he disliked him instantly, but then again, Aberforth seemed to dislike the vast majority of people.

Over a relatively short period of time, Albus grew closer with Gellert than he had with anyone else. He was a powerful and accomplished wizard too, and like Albus, had ambitions far beyond the bounds of Godric’s Hollow. They were going to change the world together. And now that they had sworn never to fight against one another, there was nothing that could come between them.

They talked of their plans sometimes, and of the Deathly Hallows that they were both eager to discover, but truly, they talked of everything, and learned nearly as much about one another as one could know about a person. Sometimes, they lost track of time entirely, and Albus didn’t return home until after dusk. On those days, he sometimes spied a sleek black owl with golden eyes and downy tufts on its ears, and wondered if perhaps someone was watching over him after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to upload both chapters 9 and 10 today, since they're both short! (This might happen a few more times, the chapter lengths are pretty weird here, but I want to make sure you guys have a decent chunk to read each time.)


	10. August 1899 – Godric’s Hollow, West Country, England

He couldn’t breathe. No air would pass through his nose, and on top of it, the pain was so bad that it was all he could do to keep from panicking and hyperventilating. There was blood all over his face, and probably tears too, so now he couldn’t see, either. In his rush to get out of the graveyard and find something to stem the bleeding—now unable even to see his sister laid to rest—he bumped into someone.

“Sorry,” he tried to say, but only a vague jumble of vowels came out.

The person caught him by the shoulders to keep him from falling over, or possibly walking into something else.

“There you are,” said a familiar gruff voice. “Come with me, all right? Let’s get that taken care of.”

Albus had no idea why or how Professor Emrys was here, but he followed blindly as the old man guided him a short distance and gently pushed him down so that he was sitting on what must be the short stone wall of the cemetery. He was definitely crying now, but hopefully Professor Emrys couldn’t tell through the blood and the swelling from his broken nose.

He felt—and heard—a sharp snap, and after a brief shooting pain, the ache began to dull. Emrys dabbed at the blood on his face with a cool, wet cloth that he must have conjured up, wiping away the tear tracks along with it. Soon, the image grew less blurry, and Albus could see his teacher kneeling in front of him and cleansing the cloth with a whispered word before cleaning away more of the blood. Professor Emrys’s propensity to turn up exactly when and where he was needed was beginning to make Albus wonder whether he wasn’t really the mythical Emrys after all—some sort of nature spirit that had decided, for one reason or another, to look after Albus as no one else had ever bothered to do. He shook his head, pushing such fanciful thoughts away.

“Thank you,” said Albus, still sounding a bit stuffy.

“It’s all right. Just breathe now, and you’ll start to feel better. Bathilda’s fetching some ice for the swelling.”

Emrys stood up with some difficulty and sat beside him on the wall. He gestured just up ahead, to where the funeral had resumed. “At least one of you should be here for the burial,” he said.

Aberforth was nowhere to be found; Albus thought he must have left after the fight—not that it could be called a fight, really. Mostly some shouting and then a punch to the face. They were lowering his sister into the ground now, and Albus looked on numbly. His family was no more. Only he and Aberforth remained, and with the part Albus had played in Ariana’s death, he doubted the two of them would ever speak again. Aberforth was probably packing his things right now, but he ought not bother; Albus should be the one to leave. It had all been his fault.

“Don’t do that right now.”

Albus looked at Emrys, confused.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking,” he explained, “think about it when you’re calmer—not right now. You’re going to make your nose bleed again. Let it heal. Let your brother cool off, and then talk to him. Not now.”

Albus nodded numbly, only hearing every other word. “How are you here?” he asked, half-convinced he had a concussion and was hallucinating.

“Abe invited me,” said Emrys.

“Ah.” Albus tried not to be hurt that Emrys had found a replacement Dumbledore so quickly.

“You’re exceptional, Albus, you always have been. But your brother’s a good lad too. He deserves a chance. And maybe right now you don’t need to be Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, greatest wizard of his age. You don’t need to be him all the time. Right now, you can just be Al.”

Albus huffed, half in amusement, half in scorn. “No one calls me Al.”

Emrys smiled. “Well, maybe someone should.”


	11. June 1900 – 3e arrondissement, Paris, France

Albus did make it to mainland Europe eventually, even if it wasn’t in the way he had originally intended. In a largely directionless effort to escape the guilt lingering in Godric’s Hollow, and to channel his grief into something at least somewhat productive, he owled the researcher Nicolas Flamel, with whom he had corresponded periodically over the course of his education, and was promptly invited to join him in Paris to study alchemy. He left straight away, attempting to part with Aberforth on relatively good terms, but hoping at least that the tension will have eased by the time he returned—whenever that might be.

Paris was grand, bustling, and a perfect distraction. Albus thought of his mother, Aberforth and Ariana, but he was far away, now, from the two graves and from the dark, empty house, and the sting of loss was not quite so potent. He studiously did _not_ think of Gellert.

It had been nearly a year now since Albus had begun his apprenticeship with Nicolas Flamel. It was arduous and engaging work, and Albus was grateful for it. When he was not working with his new mentor, he wandered the city, practiced his French, visited historic sites, or often, met with some of the many illustrious friends of Monsieur Flamel.

Today, it was the latter. After a long day in Monsieur Flamel’s studio, a knock at the door signalled the arrival of a mysterious “old friend” of Flamel’s, whose visit the old man seemed to be looking forward to, but about whom he would say almost nothing.

They could hear Madame Flamel conversing with the man in French as they cleared up their books, instruments and potions, a process that always took rather a considerable amount of time. Though Albus couldn’t make out what the muffled voices were saying, the unfamiliar one—deep, but quiet—struck him as soothing somehow.

When they finally exited onto the drawing room, Madame Flamel had already set out coffee for them all and was sitting and chatting animatedly with a surprisingly young man, who promptly jumped up from his chair to greet them. He was somehow both handsome and very peculiar-looking: he was tall and slender, and wore an old-fashioned suit that would have been respectable in quality had the colour not been visibly faded; in sharp contrast, his face was youthful, with high cheekbones and short black hair that accentuated his ears.

“Nicolas, comme c’est bien de vous revoir !” he exclaimed, grinning widely; noticing Albus, he looked him up and down with a piercing blue gaze and added brightly, “Ah, c’est qui là ? Hello there!”

Albus wasn’t sure how the man could tell he was English just by looking at him, but he also wasn’t sure he minded too terribly at this moment—especially since he seemed to immediately take an interest in Albus.

“This is Albus Dumbledore,” said Monsieur Flamel. “He’s helping me with my research, I believe I mentioned him?”

“Indeed you did,” he responded, voice only faintly accented, “but you didn’t mention his name. I’m, er, Myron Eldore. It’s very good to meet you, Mr. Dumbledore.”

“And you, sir,” said Albus, shaking his hand. “Please, call me Albus.”

He smiled. “In that case, you must call me Myron.”

“Excuse me,” Albus added, finally realising why the man looked familiar, “but I believe I know your name: are you acquainted with a Marlène Eldore?”

Myron froze for a split second, then brightened. “Ah yes, that would be my sister. I didn’t realize you two had met.”

Beside Albus, Monsieur Flamel was shaking his head for some reason. “Come,” he said, sitting beside his wife. “I am sure we have much to discuss since our last meeting.”

The four of them sat there late into the night, and with every unassuming but nonetheless captivating story that Myron told about his exploits in various countries of the world, Albus found himself more and more curious about the young man. Though he spoke English very well, he had a marked tendency to mumble (and, occasionally, to ramble). And though he told them, as Flamel had requested, of his most recent magiscientific ventures, he spoke in a way that seemed to diminish his own contributions, attributing any discoveries to cooperation, the marvels of magic, or pure chance.

Albus thought he knew better than to take an interest in another beautiful, foreign stranger, but as Myron continued dropping by over the course of his stay in Paris, Albus was drawn in by his carefree nature, by his mysterious background, and frankly, by his power, which became increasingly obvious over the course of their acquaintance, despite his protests to the contrary.

He was much like Gellert in that way, possessed of a playful spirit that belied great strength and magical prowess. But unlike Gellert, he clearly had no ambition for greatness whatsoever, and seemed to grow embarrassed whenever he unthinkingly performed extremely powerful magic, such as accidentally manifesting an apparently accurate map on the ceiling as he discussed his travels or helpfully levitating all the furniture into the air when Monsieur Flamel spotted a rat.

The most notable example, however, was another instance of wandless magic that occurred when Myron joined them in Flamel’s studio to help with one of his alchemy experiments. As they discussed which ingredient might have rendered a particular mixture inert, another potion began to boil over and spew noxious chemicals onto the floor; Albus rushed over to remove it from the flame as Flamel moved nearby materials out of the way, but before either of them could properly react, the bubbling and hissing sounds stopped short. The potion had frozen completely, bubbles half-formed, droplets halted halfway to the ground.

Albus slowly turned to look at Myron, who, with a sheepish expression, pulled out his wand and said, “Er, Evanesco.”

The potion vanished. Monsieur Flamel merely shook his head and went back to his work, but while Albus tried to follow suit, he found himself distracted for the rest of the day.

That evening, after Myron had returned to his home, Albus said to Flamel, “I was told time magic like that was impossible.”

Flamel did not bother to pretend that he didn’t know what Albus was talking about. “Not impossible,” he sighed, “merely rare.”

It was true that some famous sorcerers, notably Merlin, were rumoured to have been able to manipulate time, but Albus had assumed that to be exaggeration; and even if it wasn’t, surely it would quickly have been made known if a modern wizard were capable of it. What he had seen was entirely different from, for instance, the Hour-Reversal Charm that gave Time-Turners their function.

“Eldore _stopped_ time,” said Albus, finishing his thought aloud. “Surely a wizard who had mastery over time could avoid death, ageing, possibly even disease—is that not exactly what we are studying here in the discipline of alchemy?”

“Yes. But as you saw, what he did was instinctive—that is a raw sort of magic that I have never managed to replicate with a spell or potion. Trust me, Albus: he and I have been friends for a long time. I have long since given up attempting to understand or imitate his magic.”

“You have said that before,” said Albus, “but he cannot be much older than I am. May I ask how you met?”

Flamel hesitated. “It is difficult to recall now,” he said eventually. “It was here in Paris, some time ago. It was a disease that brought him here, as he was studying the healing arts and wanted to help fight the illness and prevent its spread. Of course, hardly anyone listened to his advice—he was so young. But I listened, and so escaped infection. When I encountered him again much later… well, I shall simply say that we were both _very_ surprised to see one another.”


	12. August 1900 – 3e arrondissement, Paris, France

The more time he spent around Myron—who had extended his stay in Paris longer than he had at first anticipated—the more often Albus experienced bouts of what he could only describe as déjà vu. The constant sense of familiarity with the strange young man was beginning to drive him to frustration. And no matter how much he pestered Monsieur Flamel, he would still say next to nothing about his ‘old friend.’

Myron’s accent did not seem precisely French like Flamel’s, which he explained as being a result of his provincial upbringing, but to Albus’s ear, it sounded more like Professor Emrys’s vaguely Celtic intonation than anything else, though that made little sense. And perhaps he was merely missing the discussions they used to have during school, but Albus found himself thinking of the professor more and more often these days. With Myron around, there were now far more fanciful antics going on around the house that reminded Albus of his Hogwarts days; when, once, Myron spent all afternoon attempting to catch an escaped chocolate frog that had seemingly been living in his pocket for quite some time, Albus couldn’t help but remember how Professor Emrys used to chase Peeves off with a large stick whenever he caught the poltergeist rooting around in his office or classroom.

Myron’s eyes, particularly, were a similar piercing blue which made Albus occasionally uncomfortable, and which irritated him even more when accompanied by the knowing smirk that usually meant he was about to pick a fight with somebody (often, Albus himself).

On one of these occasions, as Myron and Albus were walking to their respective apartments from Flamel’s residence, Myron abruptly stepped to the side as if avoiding something in the road—something that Albus then proceeded to walk right into. He stumbled as a strange man suddenly appeared inches in front of him, panting as if he had been running, already reaching down to pick something up off the ground.

“Er—excuse me—I mean, pardon,” Albus stammered, shooting a confused glance at Myron, who merely beamed innocently back at him. “Je n’ai pas remarqué…”

The stranger stood up, slightly red-faced, hands positioned as if he were holding something invisible.

“Pas de soucis !” he said quickly, already edging away. “C’est ma faute… je devrais… bonsoir !”

Albus watched bemusedly as he started running again, making a motion as if to put a hat on his head—and then disappeared again. Of course: some sort of newfangled invisibility device. Albus tried not to think too much about what, exactly, he had been running from (or to).

He turned back to Myron, who was grinning triumphantly.

“You see?” he said, calmly walking on. “I told you invisibility hats would catch on!”

“When did we talk about that?” said Albus indignantly. He couldn’t remember hearing anything about invisibility hats recently—apart from Professor Emrys’s mishap a few years ago, anyhow.

Myron frowned for a moment, but then seemed to remember something. “Ah—if it wasn’t you, perhaps it was Nicolas who was arguing with me about it. How inconvenient. I’ll have to tell him about this incident later.”

“Where would one even come by an invisibility hat?” Albus wondered, having never even heard of one before Emrys had seemingly invented it.

“There’s a shop in London that sells odd little trinkets like that sometimes,” said Myron. “Or so I’ve heard.”

Albus eyed him suspiciously. There had been so many odd things around Myron lately that he had grown certain he was hiding something: only, he had no idea what that might be. Something related to magic, perhaps, if his skittishness around the subject was any indication. Or perhaps something involving his and Flamel’s shared history…

It lingered in the back of Albus’s mind for the next few days, which then stretched into weeks. The mystery surrounding Myron began to invigorate him, just a little, for the first time since the funeral. At least he had something to occupy his thoughts. Unfortunately, it also occupied his free time, as Albus had taken to doing a little snooping again—which mainly consisted of either strolling past Myron’s apartment on the lookout for odd happenings or going straight home each evening to do more research on time magic.

In either case, his evening activities had obviously begun to worry Flamel and Myron, as both of them had begun encouraging Albus to get out of the house and explore the environs of Paris more. The third time Myron invited him on some outing or other, Albus finally accepted, and they agreed to a casual tour of a few Muggle museums the next afternoon.

To Albus’s surprise, Flamel pulled him aside that morning, before Myron arrived, and said quietly, “Don’t get too attached to him, Albus.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but Flamel continued, ignoring him. “My apprentices always adore him; he enchants everyone he meets, it seems. But he’s a solitary sort of fellow. He has been more present in your life, and in mine, than he is usually willing to do, but he prefers not to get involved. He will likely leave again soon.” He paused before leaving and added, “Besides, he is too old for you,” which was both alarming and plainly untrue.

Flamel returned to his studio without waiting for a response, leaving Albus with several unanswered questions and a little lingering anxiety about what, if anything, Flamel planned on saying about the matter. But especially, he could not shake from his mind one of Flamel’s earlier letters, in which Albus was certain he had said that he hadn’t taken on an apprentice in over one hundred years.

It is for this reason that Albus later asked Myron a question that he had already asked Flamel: “How did the two of you meet?”

And just as he had suspected, he received a very different answer. Myron smiled as they strolled down the street, adjusting his hat again—a garment that seemed to make him vaguely uncomfortable, though one could hardly be seen to leave the house without one in this day and age.

“I met him here, in Paris, some time ago now. He was a brilliant young man—well, younger than he is now, I mean—and while I was here, I became interested in his research, and so stayed to observe him for a time, offering help where I could. When I returned much later, he had made incredible strides. He welcomed me back despite my long absence, and introduced me to his lovely wife.”

Albus found it odd that he could have managed to observe Monsieur Flamel’s work without coming into contact with Madame Flamel, but what he asked instead was, “He mentioned you were a Healer.”

“Of a sort,” he said. “I studied it, but for some reason, my destiny has always seemed to lead me elsewhere.”

“And where does it lead you now?”

“I wish I knew. I fear dark times are approaching; but as always, we shall march through to the other side.”

They soon reached their destination, and their conversation slowed as they wandered halls full of ancient art.

“Why did you ask me here?” Albus asked eventually.

Myron hummed, and the long, comfortable pause before he spoke reminded Albus suddenly of Professor Emrys. “Sometimes,” he finally said, “it does one good to be reminded that there is beauty in the world.”

He walked off in the other direction, still choosing his trajectory seemingly at random. Albus followed with a shrug, but stopped when an unassuming set of sketches caught his eye.

Myron appeared by his side. “Are you familiar with da Vinci?” he asked.

“Somewhat,” said Albus without looking up. “I admit the arts were never a particular focus of mine.”

“Nor mine,” said Myron, turning to examine the finished paintings on the wall nearby.

Albus, though, was still staring at one particular sketch, drawn in the margin of a page of notes that he couldn’t read. It was the gently smiling face of a thin, odd-looking boy with long, dark curls. Now, Albus was no longer merely curious about his new friend; he was downright disturbed by the growing list of oddities. There was no way this could be a sketch of Myron, but it could not more clearly be exactly that.

He hadn’t intended to bring it to Myron’s attention, but something of his alarm must have shown through outwardly, because the boy had returned and was following his gaze.

“What is it?” he asked. “Oh, that one looks a bit like me, doesn’t it? How amusing.”

Albus looked up, and Myron was wearing a smile almost identical to the one in the image.

“Yes,” Albus agreed. “Strange.”


	13. October 1900 – Godric’s Hollow, West Country, England

Now that he had discovered it, the mystery ate away at Albus until he could hardly think of anything else. Myron departed, as Flamel had predicted, just before Aberforth was due to return to Hogwarts. Flamel, meanwhile, evaded questions about his ‘old friend’ and eventually counselled Albus to go and seek the man out himself.

And soon enough, Albus did return to England to begin conducting his own research. Now that Aberforth was back in school, Albus returned to the house in Godric’s Hollow for a brief period to arrange his affairs before establishing a residence elsewhere—wherever that might be. He arrived late on a cool evening, pausing briefly at the graveyard and studiously ignoring all of his and Gellert’s old haunts. But there was no golden-eyed owl today to watch over him on his way home, which dispirited him more than he liked to admit.

He hardly left the house in those first days back, though he would soon need to venture into the nearest large wizarding settlement to pick up the additional books and supplies he would need. In a fortuitous turn of events, Albus’s temporary boredom and cabin fever were what led him to turn, once more, to art. Because, while Godric’s Hollow was rather isolated as far as the wizarding world was concerned, there were a fair few number of Muggle cities that were easily accessible; and, remembering what Myron had said back in Paris, Albus eventually found himself wandering into an admittedly much less grand museum in a large Muggle city, hoping that the unique company of Muggles would help to alleviate his rapidly returning melancholy.

He hadn’t expected to find anything. But that hadn’t stopped him from looking. He admitted to himself that the potential thrill of finding another of Myron’s doppelgängers was the primary reason he had come to this particular building, of all the available places; so, he was both surprised and vindicated when, in his methodical scouring of the galleries, he came face to face with his newest obsession.

This painting, though, was of a figure just past childhood. A deathly skinny adolescent sat alone on a park bench, toes just brushing the ground, chin resting on his hands in an oddly pensive pose. His ill-fitting clothes and the too-long black hair curling about his ears gave him a somewhat urchin-like appearance, but at the same time, a certain elfin aspect.

His face was unmistakeable (as were his ears), despite the obvious fact that he was not the artist’s primary focus, but had merely been part of the background scenery. Albus, however, was more disturbed by the boy’s clothing, which placed him squarely within the most recent century, while the da Vinci sketch had been created many hundreds of years earlier, and with an older version of the same personage…

This had to be some elaborate prank. It was much more likely that Myron, a known mischief-maker, had modified a couple of paintings to mess with Albus than jumping to the outlandish assumption that he was as old or older than Nicolas Flamel. But discounting this evidence as a hoax would leave Albus with no explanation for the other oddities he had noticed—specifically, Myron’s powerful and unrestrained magic, his ‘longstanding friendship’ with Flamel, his repeated references to conversations for which he had not been present, and Albus’s persistent sense that something was _off_ about him. If he knew one thing, it was to trust his instincts.

So instead of going on a wild goose chase through art history for more baffling appearances of the now-familiar face, Albus turned to his steadfast old friend, the library: or, in this case, libraries. He scoured the collections of old newspapers—and, eventually, illustrated manuscripts—for similar names and faces, and for references to unsolved magical oddities. Realising rather belatedly that the Eldore siblings’ similar names and appearances were probably not a coincidence, he expanded his search yet again to include more feminine variations. And in the end, he did find a few more documents that seemed related to his new friend, though some of them were more certain than others. In fact, a Myron-like figure of one kind or another seemed to reliably pop up in the background of most important events throughout history, if one looked hard enough. He was not usually directly involved, but his recurring presence was beginning to make Albus suspicious of some hidden agenda.

The only problem was that, at this point, he had very little idea of how to proceed further. As Myron was a known associate of Nicolas Flamel, it was, of course, not entirely unlikely that he had a Philosopher’s Stone of his own, which would explain his apparent longevity; but that alone did not suffice as reason for the strange magic (and equally strange habits) that Albus had observed, nor his youthful appearance. Perhaps he also had some sort of shapeshifting ability associated with his time magic? The skills of a Metamorphagus, unfortunately, did not seem to fit this set of facts. All of the evidence seemed to be nudging Albus to attribute everything to a simple set of coincidences; and that is what made him all the more suspicious.

But Metamorphagi weren’t the only shapeshifters. There were Animagi, of course, though that was hardly relevant. And here, yet again, another legendary figure was cropping up in Albus’s research for seemingly no reason. Merlin, known for his shapeshifting, was suspected to have been an Animagus, but no one could determine what his Animagus form was because, according to contemporaries, he seemingly made a habit of regularly turning up in every disguise imaginable (though exactly why he did this was unclear).

But _that_ notion was not one that Albus ever seriously considered, despite ‘Myron’s’ powerful magic and his frequent use of names beginning with M. If Merlin were, for some reason, alive after all these centuries, the very last thing he would be doing was mucking about Paris, nattering on with Bathilda Bagshot, and making a fool of himself by either tripping over or knocking over virtually every unsecured object that crossed his path.

Obviously, Albus did not mention these momentary suspicions to Monsieur Flamel. He did, however, try again to pester Flamel about the matter, but he once more referred Albus to Myron himself: the only trouble was, he hadn’t the faintest idea of how to get back in contact with him. Even Monsieur Flamel did not know where he lived, according to his letter, and he was apparently an ‘especially person difficult to owl,’ whatever that meant.

But there was only so much Albus could learn by scouring the dredges of historical documents. He equally had no way of knowing whether Myron had ever changed his name, appearance or habits more drastically—because if he had, those instances would be nearly impossible to find. Indeed, he had already discovered a few images of and references to an old man that faintly resembled Myron, or at least appeared related, but those were much more difficult to positively identify, particularly since he seemed to favour long hair and a beard whenever socially acceptable: possibly in an effort to further obscure his face. Unfortunately, all old men with white beards simply ended up looking like Merlin, at least to Albus—or, he realised with some amusement, like Professor Emrys. In fact, there was a print of a medieval engraving that bore such a resemblance to the old professor that he was seriously considering using Christmas as an excuse to give it to him. That would surely rile him up—especially if it was, as he suspected, a rendering of Merlin, to whom Emrys clearly hated being compared.

Thus, having reached a dead end, Albus reluctantly set aside his books and resolved to take a more direct approach. With Flamel keeping his silence and Myron nowhere to be found, Albus found himself in need of an outside perspective. So, in the end, he decided to go to the most knowledgeable person he knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm uploading Chapter 14 today also--basically just a super short bonus chapter! :)


	14. Letters between Albus Dumbledore and Ambrose Emrys, postmarked January 1901

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 13 and 14 were both uploaded together today, so if you haven't yet, best read that one first!

January 17, 1901

Professor Emrys,

I hope you may permit me to write you with another of my inquiries. I am afraid that I have not been as sociable of late as I ought, having dreadfully neglected those with whom I once had a steady correspondence. My dear brother, too, is among these friends. I do hope that his schooling is progressing well, that you have found him assiduous, and that you yourself have enjoyed good health and stimulating work since last we spoke.

I myself have recently returned from my apprenticeship with Monsieur Nicolas Flamel of Paris, with whom I believe you are somewhat acquainted, and have begun some small research and experiments of my own. It is in regards to one of these that I write you today, seeking your invaluable counsel on a minor topic of personal interest.

Briefly, I believe I may have met another individual in possession of an artefact similar to Monsieur Flamel’s, but whose properties additionally prevent or reverse ageing. I realise that this is outlandish, but even so, I am bound to investigate: such an object could, if discovered, hold untold benefits for the whole of humanity.

I have accumulated some indirect evidence supporting this idea, but as you must no doubt expect, it is rather tenuous. Still, I would welcome the opportunity to share these with you and undertake a discussion of the possibilities. In either case, I look forward to hearing from you once again.

Your ardent student,

Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore

* * *

January 20, 1901

Albus,

I am most heartened to hear news of you. Aberforth, too, has been doing rather well, despite his occasional scuffles—but he should tell you of those himself. You recall correctly; I have met Nicolas Flamel, and I trust, therefore, that your apprenticeship was a productive one.

As to your project, I would be most interested in examining this evidence you speak of, although I understand that this is only speculative. It would be most convenient if you could owl these documents, or copies of them, whereupon I could provide you with what insight I can, as circumstances allow. Unfortunately, I can offer you little enlightenment as this juncture, having only a broad knowledge of the magic involved, which has, in the past, been largely theoretical in nature. All I am able to say is that, while the effects of which you speak would logically follow in the progression of the alchemical arts, such a thing is not thought to have been accomplished so far. Still, you know as well as anyone that I have never been particularly concerned with what is or is not possible: and neither, I suppose, have you.

Emrys

* * *

January 21, 1901

Professor,

Thank you for your help in this matter. I have enclosed copies of the clearest photographs, documents and other records, along with some of my notes. I hope that you find them as intriguing as I did.

Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore

* * *

January 23, 1901

Albus,

I can answer all of your questions, but I doubt you will enjoy hearing it. This is, I believe, a conversation better had in person. Would you permit me to visit your home at ten a.m. this Saturday?

Emrys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, things are moving along a little more quickly than most of you anticipated, since Merlin's memory in ABRFTS is apparently not to be trusted (a.k.a. I let the characters do their thing, and now here we are). But I hope you enjoy the upcoming chapters, despite the fact that I've taken a somewhat more direct approach to the mystery in this story. Anyway, I'll say no more. See you on Monday!


	15. January 1901 – Godric’s Hollow, West Country, England

After receiving Albus’s reply, Professor Emrys arrived at precisely ten o’clock on Saturday morning. Albus knew this because he was gazing out the window at the time, having little else to do but wonder what had driven his professor to act so strangely. Indeed, Emrys was oddly fidgety even as he materialised just in front of the gate, scuffing one foot in the sparse grass and thumbing the old pocket watch in his hand before stowing it back in his jacket pocket. He was dressed unusually, in an unremarkable Muggle suit, which Albus had never seen or even imagined him in. It was made odder by the long hair and beard he still sported, though Albus could now see that he really _was_ as skinny as he appeared.

After a brief vacillation, Emrys opened the front gate with a slight creak and walked sedately up to the door, which Albus let him knock at before opening it.

“Good morning, Professor,” said Albus, offering a hand for his hat and coat.

“And a good morning to you. Thank you.”

“Tea?”

“Please.”

Albus offered him a seat at a small table in the most sunlit corner of the room—which he had dragged over after growing thoroughly exhausted by the gloomy atmosphere—and quickly set the kettle about its duties with a wordless spell before joining him.

Emrys smiled, one finger tapping lightly on his knee, face cast partially in shadow by the heavy curtains. “I see you haven’t forgotten to practise.”

“Of course not,” said Albus, speaking quietly for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on. “But I’m afraid I can still only do simple spells without my wand.”

He nodded, staring vaguely toward the ceiling. “That’s to be expected. But you will continue to improve.”

Albus wondered, not for the first time, whether he was looking not upward, but into the future when he did that; but he said nothing, knowing that Emrys would circle round to his point in due time. For a moment, he had a distant recollection of Marlène Eldore and her odd premonition…

Meanwhile, the kettle drew his attention, and Albus arranged their tea while Emrys watched him with an odd expression, as if this was the last time they would see each other for a long while. It made him rather nervous.

“I promised you answers,” said Emrys eventually. “But first, I am afraid I must request just a little more patience; because if you really want to know the secret behind that young man’s presence in so many places, I need to tell you a story. I must warn you, as I did once before, that you may not like what you are about to hear—and furthermore, I know already that it will not help you find what you seek. Are you certain that you wish to hear it?”

“Yes,” said Albus quickly.

Emrys nodded soberly. “It is as I expected.” He sighed. “Now, I must ask that you not interrupt. You may ask whatever questions you like when it is over.”

Albus nodded his agreement, and Emrys took a deep breath before beginning.

“I was born in a small village, to a Muggle mother and a wizard father.” At Albus’s squint, he added, “I know this doesn’t seem relevant, but everything will make sense by the end. This is one of the reasons I asked you not to interrupt. And yes, the village _was_ in Wales, I know you didn’t believe me. Evidently, my accent has not improved as much as I had hoped. Anyhow, where was I? Ah yes, the very beginning.” He sighed wearily. “I was different, like you. Magic came easily to me. I had to be coerced into learning how to walk, because I much preferred flying.”

Albus opened his mouth—and shut it at a look from Emrys.

“Skipping ahead. Being that this was a Muggle village, the other residents did not react well to this sort of tomfoolery, so when I was seventeen or so, my mother sent me to live with my uncle in the nearest city. He helped me learn to control my magic, and gave me enough work to do that I didn’t have much time to get into trouble.” He scoffed. “Well, of course, I managed it anyway, which is how I met most of my friends. First, I got into a fight with Arthur, the son of a Muggle official—well, two fights, actually—then I met a seamstress while getting a load of vegetables thrown at me, and later her mistress too; I forged papers for another friend, one bailed _me_ out of a fight, et cetera, until eventually, all two to nine of us were rampaging about the countryside on a regular basis.”

Emrys paused, seemingly considering how quickly to proceed. Albus noticed that the shadows seemed to be gathering around him, giving everything a more serious tone than it might have otherwise had.

“Arthur and I continued getting into verbal and physical altercations constantly—when I wasn’t busy saving his idiot hide—and eventually he married my _other_ best friend, the seamstress, and I was the permanent third wheel from then on.” He grinned, blue eyes brightening. “He succeeded his father, becoming a great leader and much less of a prat, and his wife was quite possibly an even better leader than he was. But…”

He looked down at the table and his still untouched tea. “It was around this time that the first of us died. He sacrificed himself to save the rest of us. One of our number, Arthur’s sister, she had turned against the rest of us—well, me specifically—and really, it wasn’t her fault to begin with, but ultimately, we ended up on opposite sides of a war. Gwen’s brother died saving her not long after. In one of the final battles of the war, my best friend was injured, and our two other friends stayed behind to buy us time, so that I could get him medical attention. They didn’t survive, and neither did he.”

Albus was not at all sure why Emrys was telling him any of this, but he was nonetheless horrified. Still, Emrys pushed on, his face taking on a younger air as he spoke of his old friends.

“It was just me, Gwen and Leon then. Well, and my uncle—but he was so old. Age took him, and my mother too, eventually. I stayed with them, and we did our best to run everything on our own. It went well for a while. Eventually, Leon got married and moved away.”

It was at this point that Albus noticed that the professor’s hair truly was growing greyer in colour—and possibly even shorter—along with his beard. Albus’s eyes widened and he tried to speak, to tell him something was happening, but Emrys raised an eyebrow and continued, leaving Albus to wonder in silence.

“I saw him once or twice more. But I had apprentices by this time, and soon, he had children.” He sighed, and Albus knew it was time for the last one. “Gwen died when she was seventy. We were the same age, you know. I left the city, then. I probably shouldn’t have, but I did. I wanted to spend my last years somewhere else, where there weren’t so many memories.”

Albus had expected some mention of how he had come to work at Hogwarts by now, but Emrys never seemed to get there.

“I didn’t leave the Isles. Never had. I spent thirty years wandering around, and didn’t feel any closer to death than usual, so I finally started making use of my medical training, just to pass the time.”

Albus couldn’t ignore it anymore. Emrys’s shoulder-length hair was nearly black now, with only a few streaks of grey—and his beard, too—but he just kept talking. It must be magic, but how? And more importantly, why?

Emrys huffed a laugh. “By the time I was two hundred, I was just about tired of waiting around. So I left again—went as far as I could Apparate. Then _I_ ended up needing some medical attention. Still didn’t die, though.”

_How old are you?_ Albus could only wonder, listening as Emrys’s gravelly voice slowly smoothed itself out.

And as always, Emrys heard what he didn’t say. “I started to get annoyed by the time I got to three hundred.” Albus’s eyes widened, but Emrys studiously ignored him. “I asked questions, but no one had any answers. Eventually, I went back home. Nothing better to do.”

He shook his head. “I expected my village to be gone, and it was. But when I arrived at the gates of the city I’d lived in for so long, even _it_ wasn’t there anymore. There was no one. It was a ruin. I didn’t know what to do, so I preserved it, hid it and left. Again. That’s when I really knew something was wrong.”

Albus could say the same, watching in a mix of horror and fascination as the lines of Emrys’s face faded, so slowly that he was half-convinced he was hallucinating.

“But I didn’t know what was going on. I only had theories. I discovered that my own name had fallen out of use, though. I didn’t realize why at first. I just picked a new one every time I reached a new town. When I was four hundred, I helped a couple of friends build a new castle, where magical people would be safe again. I hoped they’d do well, of course, but I never really expected to hear from them again. I did, though, sort of.”

The next time Emrys sighed, Albus held his breath as he awaited the newest number.

“I was eight hundred when the plague came. I tried to use medicine to cure people, I tried to use magic, but still I could only save a few. At least, that’s how it seemed. And, of course, there was constant war, even then. I fought in some, tried to stop others. It never seemed to do _enough._ ”

Bright blue eyes finally snapped back to Albus’s, staring out of a face that was similar to Emrys’s, but distinctly different—younger. He looked merely middle-aged now, and despite his rising panic, Albus kept his promise. He didn’t interrupt.

“When I crossed the threshold of one thousand, they discovered a new land mass. Well, re-discovered, really.”

He grinned, and Albus could see his sharp cheekbones despite the short beard. He hoped Emrys wasn’t implying what Albus thought he was. How much more of this story was there?

“I spent some time there, but the fight for the ‘new’ land was a bloodbath. When the dust began to settle, I knew I hadn’t prevented hardly anything, but the damage was done. I returned to Europe, visiting some of the cities that had changed so much since I’d left. I was in Paris—I was one thousand, one hundred, I think—when I thought I was finally beginning to lose my mind.”

Albus put his head in his hands for a moment, trying to recover his wits, and when he looked back up, a very familiar thirty-year-old was sitting across from him.

Even his face was thin, without the beard. Those prominent ears had been hidden under his long hair, but now Albus could clearly see not only that, but also his bright blue eyes, and his wide smile as he laughed and said, “I couldn’t believe it. Nicolas was still alive—he’d survived the plague, and then some. He was already three hundred. Obviously, I had to explain what I was. He was rather irritated that he’d spent all that time studying alchemy only for me to turn up, looking almost exactly the same, for no reason at all.”

He glanced at Albus again, a sort of sympathy in his eyes, and concluded: “When I found myself at Hogwarts again, I had already lived for fourteen hundred years. It wasn’t the first time I had returned since I had helped build the enchantments, but when I discovered that the founders’ portraits were hanging in the headmaster’s office, well—they had a lot of questions, too.”

Albus began several sentences, of which only one word each would be spluttered into the silence. _Are you making this up? Why didn’t you say anything? Who are you? How did you live so long? Why are you telling me this?_

“You’re Emrys,” is what his mouth decided to say.

Myron—Emrys—he shot Albus a look of alarm, and seemed to be considering whether he should change back to the body he was in when he entered the room and begin the whole ordeal over again.

“The real one, I mean,” said Albus quickly. “From the Druidic legends.”

He squinted. “How do you know about that?”

Albus raised his eyebrows.

“Right.” He hesitated a moment before admitting, “Yes, I am. At least, they all seemed to believe I was the one from the legend.”

Emrys’s fidgeting looked less out of place on Myron’s body, but that didn’t make Albus feel any better.

“Why do you keep pretending to be different people?”

“I don’t!” he said quickly, then scratched his head. “Well, maybe a bit, so no one notices I don’t die. But I swear, when I went to see Nicolas, I didn’t realise you were going to be there, or I would’ve just been old instead. It’s just uncomfortable for long periods of time, so I often turn young when I leave Hogwarts. I only aged myself up in the first place so students would take me seriously. It was a problem when I had apprentices, in the beginning,” he added in a mumble.

Albus glared. “What about Marlène, then?”

“Oh. Well, Bathilda lives alone. She couldn’t have a gentleman caller stay overnight, especially not multiple times. I didn’t want to be an imposition, that’s all.”

Albus made a face at this logic, wondering if he really was out of his mind. Not that he could really blame him if he was. Over a thousand years…

“Besides,” he added, “I change things around every so often. It helps alleviate the tedium. I just try not to stray too far from the original—I might forget what I really look like.”

Albus sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Why are you telling me all this?”

The young Emrys shrugged. “I always knew you’d figure it out eventually. Soon, probably. I just wanted you to hear it from me. It’s only fair, since I kept it from you for so long, that I give you the answers you seek instead of disappearing like I normally do. I never wanted to hide from anyone, you understand. But eventually, it became a necessity.”

“But how is this possible?” said Albus. “You make it sound as if you were born immortal, yet you also say you are human.”

He looked a little sad—suddenly, it was easier to see on his younger face. “I know. I can’t explain it. According to the Druids, there were circumstances before my birth that led, for some reason, to my magic being much stronger than anyone else’s, and innate rather than learned. I believe that is what keeps my body alive. But it’s autonomic: I have no control over it.”

“Your time magic…” Albus muttered. “And Nora! And the wandless magic, too—you’re stronger than me, aren’t you?”

Emrys nodded solemnly. “Yes. But that is only because I was put on this earth to protect magic, and magical people and creatures. It is for this reason alone that I am permitted to wield such power. I don’t know how you found out about Nora, but I always knew you were far too skittish around her to be unaware of how she was created. I’d never made anything that complicated before, actually—just bugs and things—so I think she turned out rather well, on the whole.”

For some reason, it was his rambling that helped Albus see the old man behind the young face again. He sighed through the shock that still flooded his system. “I have so many questions.”

“Perhaps you should take some time to think them over,” said Emrys. “Decide what you _really_ want to know. I will still be at Hogwarts. And I won’t blame you if you choose to distance yourself from me,” he added sincerely. “But should you need my help in the future, you need only ask.”

“Ask which of you?” Albus murmured, half to himself. “Emrys is your true name, then, is it?”

He hesitated, starting to speak but quickly changing his mind. “Yes. I’ve had many names, but that was the first.” He didn’t meet Albus’s eyes. “I should leave you now. Thank you for your hospitality.”

Albus wanted to protest, but couldn’t form the words; and then Emrys stood, flashing one final smile at Albus before Disapparating on the spot. His hat and coat disappeared along with him. Albus thought absently, without any real proof, that he could probably Apparate past the Hogwarts wards with no trouble at all.

It did not take more than a few seconds for Albus to realise that Emrys had left something out. Cursing himself for letting the old trickster get away so easily, he resolved to waste no more time in finding out what, exactly, Emrys had conveniently omitted from his meandering story.


	16. January 1901 - Godric's Hollow, West Country, England

It did not take long for Albus to realise that something was off. In fact, it was only minutes after Emrys’s departure that he began to piece together the inconsistencies in the story. Most obviously, it was a very strange way to go about telling someone that one was secretly immortal: Emrys went into more detail on the beginning of his life than seemed necessary, and it felt as if Albus had missed some key tying the story together. Not to mention that there were a number of things Emrys had not got around to explaining, including his continual interference in the Muggle world and his penchant for M-names. Speaking of which, ‘Emrys’ was more of a title than a name, as far as he could tell—surely his parents had given him a normal name when he was born?

Albus couldn’t conceive of a reason why Emrys would tell him all of this and still keep his real name a secret. And what was worse, he _knew_ he was missing something important. He could feel it. Perhaps Emrys expected him to figure it out.

If Emrys’s numbers were correct, that would mean he was born sometime during the sixth century. Albus frowned. That time period stood out to him for some reason. What had happened during the sixth century? He flipped through his books, trying to clear up the chronology of the Middle Ages in his mind. The Crusades were toward the end… the fall of Rome was before the beginning… and the sixth century… Albus’s eyes flicked to the corner of the room, where he knew the book of myths and fairy tales that his mother had used to read to him was sitting on a windowsill, gathering dust. The Arthurian legends. As he looked, the little caricature of Merlin on the cover winked at him.

Albus had to sit down before he fell down.

_‘I got into a fight with Arthur, the son of a Muggle official…’_

_‘Arthur’s sister, she had turned against us…’_

_‘Gwen died when she was seventy. We were the same age.’_

_King_ Arthur, _Queen_ Guinevere, _Sir_ Leon… and M—

Albus could hardly bring himself to think it, let alone say it. Impossible. Yet… it explained everything.

Merlin’s grave wasn’t lost; it had never even existed. His life wasn’t muddled by history; it was purposefully obfuscated by a man too secretive for his own good. He hadn’t disappeared at all. He had merely changed his name and moved to the next country over. It was positively _infuriating_ how easy it must have been.

And, yes, it appeared that, in the whirlpool of conflicting emotions and scattered thoughts in Albus’s mind, anger was rising to the forefront. He didn’t even bother to grab his hat as he marched through the front door, only realising once he was outside that it was practically midday already. How long, precisely, had he been sitting there in a stupor? It only made him angrier.

Not caring a whit for manners at this particular point in time, Albus Apparated straight to Hogwarts—or as close as he could get to it, in any case, which was just outside Hogsmeade. He glared up at the castle. Ignoring the odd looks that his sudden appearance, Muggle clothing and irate expression were earning him, he practically stomped off in the direction of the school.

Albus was eventually forced to slow down as he trudged up the slope, and along with his pace, his anger began to relent. He was making a lot of assumptions, after all, wasn’t he? But it was the only explanation that made sense. Why is your eccentric teacher able to stop time, create life, and chase delinquents down corridors at breakneck speed despite being apparently ninety years old? Why does he keep showing up in the background of history? Why is he unrelentingly peculiar? Because he’s Merlin, that’s why.

But Albus was also beginning to realise that there was no logical reason for Emrys to tell him so much and still omit his true name. It was the same thing that Albus had noticed before Emrys knocked on his door: he had been apprehensive. By his own admission, he had expected Albus to spurn his company after all had been revealed. Perhaps it had happened before.

It was only at this point, halfway up to Hogwarts, that it occurred to Albus that picking a fight with the father of magic might be slightly unwise. He faltered, shook his head, and continued on his way. No matter what or who Emrys was, he wouldn’t hurt Albus.

By the time he finally reached the school, there were a lot of students milling about, so it was fairly easy—in black clothes and without a hat—for Albus to go unnoticed by any teachers and make his way toward Emrys’s office, which he belatedly hoped had not been relocated. He also had to avoid his brother, but Aberforth and his friends had a tendency to keep to themselves in more deserted hallways, empty classrooms, and the edge of the forest, so there wasn’t much chance of an accidental meeting.

The familiar door to Emrys’s office, when he reached it, was half-open, the usual welcoming position that it was in when no meetings were in session. And as usual, Albus could hear the old man muttering to himself as he shuffled about the room. He hesitated before knocking, noticing the various bits of parchment stuck to the walls, on which various equations were scribbled in a large script, allowing Emrys to step back and look at them all at once. As he did so, he continued muttering about numbers, variables, runes and various magical plants. Albus wasn’t at all sure what Emrys was trying to accomplish, but as he spoke, yet more equations wrote themselves in mid-air above his head, circling about, crossing themselves out, and adding things. They were so realistic that a few droplets of ink dripped onto the floor below before it fully ‘dried.’

But it was Emrys himself that Albus focused on. Seeing him in his older form again, it occurred to Albus that he looked _exactly_ as one would expect the Prince of Enchanters to look, except for perhaps a hat and staff—but he did indeed have a staff, in fact, gathering dust on top of a large bookshelf. The old man was as imposing, and as chaotic, as one would imagine Merlin to be, yet Albus knew that he was also the same man that had once come close to tears over a spider that Albus had smashed with a book. He had instantly felt so bad about it that he never crushed a bug again in his life.

It had never really occurred to Albus to wonder what Merlin might have looked like when he was young, but now that he knew, he could make out the angular face and bright blue eyes, and knew that his white hair had once been black as coal.

As he looked on, Albus was staring, as if for the first time, at the true face of Merlin.

The man in question finally realised that he had been scribbling all over the air like a madman, said aloud, “Whoops,” and then, with a wave of his hand, sent all of his equations marching, in a semi-orderly fashion, onto the pieces of parchment where they belonged. He pointed at them warningly, as if concerned that they might run off down the hall or something.

Albus knocked on the door.

Emrys jumped, turned pale (well, paler than usual), and beckoned him in with a half-smile.

“Thought I’d be seeing you again,” he said, gathering up his papers and returning to his seat behind his desk. “Come in, sit down.”

Albus sat, and could practically feel the wind go out of his proverbial sails.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he sighed, without preamble.

Emrys looked contrite. “I meant to,” he said, shuffling his papers. “But at the last moment—I don’t know. It seemed like… too much.”

The way Emrys was talking only strengthened Albus’s suspicions. This wasn’t possible… yet here they were.

“Professor,” said Albus wearily, “this is one occasion on which I’m going to need you to spell it out for me. Just for my own peace of mind.”

Emrys smiled wryly. “I suppose I _should_ introduce myself properly, shouldn’t I?” He reached across the desk to shake Albus’s rather limp hand. “Merlin of Ealdor, at your service.”

Albus was almost ready to laugh at the notion that he would need to add clarification to the most famous name in history. Instead, he just sat there gaping at him. It didn’t matter that he had known: it was still a shock to hear it from the man himself.

_Merlin_ , though, seemed to think Albus was waiting for something.

“I would give you my last name,” he said nervously, “but I don’t have one. I think I mentioned I was a peasant.”

“You did,” Albus agreed vaguely. “Sort of.”

They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment.

At that point, a small doodle of a bowtruckle leapt off the top page of his scribbles and tried to hightail it across the desk and, presumably, onto the floor; Emrys caught the two-dimensional creature between thumb and forefinger and smoothed it down back onto the parchment, where it sat and crossed its arms.

“I mean, really…” Emrys muttered before resorting to stowing the whole stack away in one of his desk drawers. “Personally, Albus, I’d say you’re lucky you don’t have magic leaking out of your ears. A thousand years of these shenanigans, honestly!”

“Why are you wasting your time teaching at Hogwarts?” Albus blurted. “You could be out there doing so many amazing things!”

“I did!” Emrys said, throwing up his hands. “Not to be immodest, but I did a lot of fairly miraculous things, and look where it’s gotten me! I didn’t prevent my destiny, don’t know why I thought I could, practically everyone I’ve ever met is dead, and no matter how many wars I helped prevent, there’s always a new one ‘round the corner anyhow. Sometimes, Albus, amazing just isn’t enough.”

Albus sighed, leaning back in the familiar chair and shaking his head. “All right, Professor Merlin,” he said with a slight smirk. “But I think you owe me a few very interesting stories at the very least, wouldn’t you say?”

Merlin grinned back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two at a time again! We're about to pick up the pace now...


	17. Assorted letters between Albus Dumbledore and Ambrose Emrys, postmarked between February 1902 and August 1909

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note chapters 16 and 17 were both uploaded today--hopefully, upcoming chapters will be more regular in length.

February 4, 1902

Dear ‘Emrys,’

I knew you were lying about the Grail, and now I have proof. Come and get it, old man.

Your long-suffering student,

Albus

* * *

February 4, 1902

Al,

You are an unbelievable nuisance. Don’t touch that damned thing until I get there. Now I have to go and hide it again, bloody hell. Do you have any idea how difficult that was?

Your equally long-suffering teacher,

Emrys

P.S. How did you get past the fourth booby trap?

* * *

June 20, 1902

Albus,

Your brother has undergone some facial rearrangement. For your own health, do not point it out when he arrives home. But don’t tell him I warned you, either. You should also avoid commenting on the following:

  * any temporary speech impediment he may or may not have (I am sworn to secrecy on that one, although I can assure you that there are no responsible parties that will need seeing to);
  * whatever he has done to his wand, which is purely superficial, I have checked;
  * and the hair.



Good luck,

Emrys

* * *

November 18, 1902

Emrys,

Bathilda knows we’ve been corresponding, and she is harassing me now. Unfortunately, I told her it was Eldore I have been writing to (it seemed less odd), and now she asks after you every time I leave the house. I think she is interested in you, and I have no desire to be the middleman. The trouble is, I have not been able to determine which Eldore sibling she thinks you are, since apparently, she has met both. However, I believe that falls squarely into the territory of ‘your problem.’

Please pay her a visit. And while you’re here, get your butterflies out of my house.

Albus

* * *

November 25, 1902

Emrys,

Wrong sibling.

Albus

* * *

March 30, 1903

Boys,

I’m outside your house. I brought food.

Emrys

* * *

December 25, 1903

Albus,

The Muggles can fly!

Emrys

P.S. Merry Christmas!

P.P.S. _FLY!_

* * *

April 9, 1904

Emrys,

I know you’re the one who’s been leaving my rival ominous notes. It appears to be having the desired effect. Now, stop harassing the poor man.

Albus

* * *

January 28, 1905

Albus,

Saw something weird in the crystals today. Don’t use a feather duster or pick up any stray Knuts for the next week or so.

~~Mer~~ Emrys

* * *

September 13, 1905

Emrys,

Is there any chance you’ve made the acquaintance of a man by the name of Charles Dodgson? He seems to have borrowed some of your vocabulary.

Albus

* * *

September 14, 1905

Albus,

[ _Rude drawing—redacted_ ]

Emrys

* * *

June 16, 1907

Emrys,

One of your doodles seems to have escaped the last time you were here, and is refusing to vacate the premises. It appears to be a dragon, which is inconvenient because there are now a number of very small burn marks all over the ceiling, but at least it has been scaring the spiders away. In any case, please come collect it. It’s beginning to upset the neighbours.

Albus

P.S. Also, the small rug in the entryway has come to life again. I don’t know where it is, but someone must have let it out. Keep one eye open. Last I checked, it was looking murderous.

* * *

February 26, 1908

Albus,

What on earth have you been doing with that vial of dragon’s blood? I’ve been hearing all sorts of strange stories from my colleagues. I told you to save it in case of emergencies. Quit cleaning things with it. I’ll not help you if you run out!

Emrys

* * *

September 7, 1909

Albus,

Would you believe Abe’s taken over the Hog’s Head? The number of times I found him under one of the tables in that place… I knew it the second I walked in—smelled of goats, you know. He was pleased he finally managed to surprise me, though. You ought to come visit sometime, and we can all catch up. I don’t think I’ll be here much longer.

I hate to leave now, but I’ve been at Hogwarts nearly thirty years now and people are starting to get suspicious. I would prefer not to leave Abe and Nora and Rowena and everyone, but it’s time to move on. My bones are tired. It’ll be nice to be young again, I think.

Emrys


	18. A series of unexpected encounters - 1918 to 1950

_December 1918 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland_

Merlin showed up at the door to Albus’s office on Christmas Eve with a clumsily wrapped gift, one eye, and an arm covered in bandages. Albus was barely able to suppress his flinch when he opened the door, but he could see on Merlin’s face that he hadn’t fooled him. The wry smile on his young face was familiar, but twisted due to the not insubstantial scarring on the left side of his face.

“Albus,” he said cheerfully. “I’m glad you’re here, I wasn’t sure if you’d be staying at school over the holiday. May I come in?”

Albus didn’t bother asking how he’d got inside the castle. He also didn’t trust himself to respond right away, so he merely opened the door wider and led his old friend inside, closing it behind them. He had heard about the Muggle war. He had heard about the disfigured survivors. He had noticed that letters were few and far between. But he never imagined Merlin would have involved himself in the Muggles’ war.

“Don’t worry about this,” said Merlin, cocking his head to indicate his burns. He had no free hand to point with. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. The nurses fixed me up pretty well, and I did what I could afterwards, but it’s a bit hard to do that sort of magic on yourself.”

Soon, they were seated in the opposite of their usual arrangement, with Albus at his desk and Merlin across from him.

“Brought this for you,” Merlin added, sliding the package across the desk. He knew without needing to look that it was a book. “I went to see Abe on the way up here, but I could see I was making him uncomfortable, so I didn’t stay long.”

“I’ll speak to him,” said Albus, rummaging in his bottom drawer for the packet of herbs and supplies he had been accumulating for Merlin over the course of the past few years.

“No need,” said Merlin, waving a hand. “Next time I see him, I’ll probably have regrown a few things—I’m just not feeling up to it right now. Perhaps I’ll stop by St. Mungo’s, see what they can do.”

“Why haven’t you already?”

“No time. I reenlisted as a medic, and since I might have been killed there anyway, I didn’t bother. Besides, I’ve heard the Ministry doesn’t take kindly to wizards enlisting in Muggle wars these days.”

Albus sighed. “So have I. Here—” He handed over the supplies. “Maybe you can make more use of these than I had imagined.”

“No doubt,” said Merlin, examining the contents. “Thank you. Oh, I almost forgot.”

He drew a small, padded box out of his pocket and, opening it, placed it on Albus’s desk between them. Inside sat a perfectly intact, swivelling, electric blue eye.

“Whoa!” Albus exclaimed, looking between Merlin’s missing eye and the animated one sitting on his desk. “What—why are you giving me this?”

Merlin chuckled. “Sorry. That probably deserved some preamble. I repaired it because I intended to put it back in my head, but that would be more trouble than it’s worth at this point, since I’m not a brain surgeon. I thought you might have more use for it than I. It’s a _magical_ eye, obviously. Since it’s mine. If you use that spell—” He indicated a small slip of paper wedged inside, “you can look through the eye as if it were your own, no matter where it is. I’ve already turned it off, it was giving me a headache.”

“That’s… incredible,” said Albus.

Merlin made a sound of disagreement. “It would be _incredible_ if they could produce more of these as prosthetics. But, since I don’t intend to lose another eye any time soon, I suppose we’ll have to wait a few years for that.”

They said nothing else about the war for the rest of the night. Instead, they talked mostly of old times, but also of some of Albus’s students, of whom Merlin had always liked to hear news. Merlin was staying at the Hog’s Head for the time being, but Albus made him promise to return the next day for the Christmas Feast, as his personal guest.

* * *

Christmas Day was usually a small but joyous affair at Hogwarts, and this year was no different. Merlin’s entrance had attracted a few stares from the students, but the staff knew enough about the state of the world outside their walls to refrain from commenting; Merlin himself drew no attention to his injuries or their source apart from using more nonverbal magic than usual to do things one-handed. He struck up conversations with some of the staff, particularly those that he had known during his tenure as professor, though he quite agilely avoided revealing that he had ever known them before. It made Albus a little sombre to realise that he was so practiced at lying to his friends from so many centuries of immortality.

And as he watched his new friends interact with his oldest one, it struck him abruptly that he now appeared to be older than Merlin. He had a sudden vision of himself as an old man (looking much like Professor Emrys, the oldest man he knew), lying on his deathbed with Merlin at his side, looking no older than he did at this very moment. _This_ was Merlin’s true face, not the mask of Emrys he had worn—the face of an eternal boy, marred by war that he never stopped trying to end.

He was jolted out of his reverie when, with a blast like a cannon, someone set off a Wizard Cracker. Blue smoke and laughter surrounded the Gryffindor table.

Merlin, though, was worse than startled. He had jumped up so quickly that his chair toppled over with a clatter, his working hand scrabbling for a gun that wasn’t there. After a tense second, he seemed to suddenly become aware of where he was, and a confusing mix of emotions flitted across his face in an instant.

“Blimey, that was a good one!” he exclaimed, righting his chair and giving a jovial clap. “Knocked me right out of my chair!”

Though the teachers saw through it, the students seemed to be reassured, and quickly went back to making merry.

The next time Albus looked back toward Merlin, he was gone, and nobody seemed to notice that anyone was missing.

* * *

_July 1925 – London, England_

As a favour for tipping him off about the illegally imprisoned Thunderbird in Egypt, Scamander had suggested that Albus meet him in London to take a look at the animal. His insight, the young man had said, was likely to be especially interesting, since he was the only person in England (and possibly the world) with a phoenix for a companion. Albus himself wasn’t entirely sure why he had been chosen for that particular distinction in the first place, but he didn’t tell Scamander that.

They met up at the hotel where Scamander was staying for the time being. The young man mumbled in every direction except for _at Albus_ as he recounted his adventures in Egypt, explaining how he had managed to rescue the bird from traffickers with a little help from a couple of archaeologists and historians at a nearby dig, and then he made a gesture of invitation at the suitcase sitting in the middle of the floor.

Albus shot him a confused look, but Scamander was too busy fiddling with the locks on the case to notice. All was soon explained when he lifted the lid to reveal a frankly _immense_ extension charm of some kind.

“Come on,” said Scamander, already descending into the suitcase. With a shrug, Albus followed.

The inside of the case was a truly incredible work of magic, filled with countless different habitats mere feet from each other; the animals were contained with as much freedom as possible, and arranged in a way that minimized the risk of aggression between neighbours. Albus was led through rainforests, under lakes, across plains, and finally to a desert, all in the space of a few minutes. He followed Scamander to a large rock face dotted with caves—and there, sitting at the entrance to a large cavern, was not only a large Thunderbird, but also a very familiar thin, dark-haired figure.

Merlin was looking well these days. He had either died or been healed since Albus last saw him in 1921—though Albus wasn’t inclined to ask which—as he had all of his original body parts back, and no visible scars. He was looking a little older, too: perhaps mid-fifties (finally older than Albus again), with longer hair and a short, greying beard.

His grin was as youthful as ever. “Hello, Albus!” he exclaimed, jumping up and startling the bird, though it didn’t fly away just yet.

“Mer—?” Albus stopped short and shook his head. “What on earth are you doing in a suitcase full of dangerous magical creatures?”

“Didn’t feel like going through customs,” he said. “Are we there yet?” he asked Scamander.

“Yes,” he replied. “ _Now_ we’re here. How is Frank?”

“Frank?” Albus repeated.

“Oh, he’s settling in,” said Merlin, patting the bird on the head (something that Fawkes, for one, would probably never tolerate—unless, perhaps, it was Merlin). “Bit cold here, I think, but he’s happier.”

Albus sighed and took a seat nearby, resigning himself to being lost for the foreseeable rest of the conversation.

* * *

_November 1931 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland_

“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

The squeaky voice, which had seemed to come from nowhere, startled Albus slightly. Looking down, though, he saw a very small boy—worryingly small, in fact—standing beside him, hands clasped behind his back. He was seemingly watching the Black Lake, just as Albus was, and the cold wind ruffled his black hair as they stood side by side.

Albus found it difficult to agree with the boy, though, because it was also raining.

Instead, he hummed noncommittally and said, “Perhaps—but cold. You must look after your health.”

They were both standing under the awning, but Albus got the feeling he would be concerned about the boy’s health if there was so much as a slight breeze, so standing outside on a rainy November morning was even less ideal.

The boy waved a hand to dismiss his concerns. “Oh, it’s only a little rain. I haven’t been truly cold in a long time.”

He looked up at Albus with an enigmatic smile, blue eyes twinkling.

Albus sighed deeply. “Good lord,” he said in a low voice. “Merlin?”

Merlin merely winked.

“What are you doing here _this_ time?”

“Just visiting old friends,” he said with a shrug of his tiny shoulders.

Albus scoffed. “And by the way, are you getting progressively younger just to rub it in, or have you simply finally realised how immature you are?”

Merlin’s laugh fell into a strange space between a child’s giggle and an old man’s guffaw. “Who taught you to be so impertinent, anyway?”

“You did.”

“Well, that was a mistake, clearly.” He looked around suddenly, as if he had misplaced something. “Where’s that young man of yours, anyhow? Don’t tell me you’ve got rid of this one, too. I rather liked him.”

Albus hushed him. “Keep it down, will you? This isn’t the sixth century anymore. Besides, he’s hardly a young man—nor I, for that matter.”

Merlin glanced up at him as if he’d actually forgotten that Albus was already fifty. “I suppose. But I do worry you’re becoming more reclusive lately.”

Albus snorted. “You hardly have room to call _me_ reclusive. It wouldn’t kill you to settle down somewhere for more than ten years in a row, you know. In fact, you should come back to Hogwarts.”

“Oh, so _now_ teaching is a worthwhile profession.”

“I was twelve, stop bringing that up.”

It occurred to Albus that, on the outside, this was a very strange conversation to be having with an eleven-year-old. That didn’t stop either of them from continuing it for quite some time, however.

* * *

_October 1941 – Paris, France_

“Ça va, ça va ! Je le connais, c’est un anglais.”

The angry, armed Frenchmen cleared the way for Albus to pass, revealing an old and very cluttered room that had very obviously been converted into a printing press for forged documents. Sitting among the mess, predictably, was Merlin.

Albus still managed to be surprised by this. “What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” Merlin replied. “Haven’t you heard there’s a war on? France isn’t safe anymore, Albus, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you,” Albus muttered, then more clearly: “I was trying to check on the Flamels’ safehouse; they ought to get out before it gets any worse. Evidently, I have the wrong address.”

Merlin sighed and went back to painstakingly altering someone’s surname on a piece of identification. “Yeah, they’ve moved again. I already tried convincing him to get out while there’s time, but he won’t go. Besides, with the way London is looking these days, they can’t very well go up there. Don’t worry—we’ve both made sure no one’s ever getting into that house.”

“Still, I would prefer to check on him.”

“I’ll give you the address somewhere more private. Feel free to try talking some sense into him, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. How have things been in the other world?”

Albus sighed. “Not much better, to be frank. My old friend seems to have amassed a following of sorts.”

Merlin nodded. “I was afraid of that. Let me know if you need my help. For now, though, I think my, er, skills could be put to better use here. At least—” He indicated the gathered Muggles, “when I have more freedom to work. I used to be quite good at forging documents back in the day, you know. By the way, how is it going with that boy you asked me about, Tom something? I meant to keep better watch over him, but as you can see, other things have got in the way.”

“I have it under control,” Albus insisted. “He seems to be improving, but I’ve continued to keep a wary eye on him.”

Merlin nodded. The momentary silence allowed the chaotic sounds of occupied Paris to drift through the window, even over the muffled noise of the Resistance’s machines.

“Hang on,” said Albus suddenly. “Did you give an Acromantula egg to a student?”

Merlin froze.

“No.”

* * *

_November 1945 – New York, United States_

The portly, middle-aged man sitting across from Albus on the subway would not stop glancing over at him. He wore shabby Muggle clothing, a large rucksack and a slight smirk that Albus wasn’t entirely sure was directed at him. Nonetheless, he kept staring. Albus had tried ignoring him, staring back at him, and shooting him occasional glares to get him to stop, but nothing had worked.

And then it occurred to him.

He squinted suspiciously at the man, whose opaque expression did not change in the slightest as he watched Albus watch him. Looking around to make sure his movements went unnoticed by the other passengers, Albus got up, crossed the car, and sat beside the man in one of the many empty seats.

The man did not react to Albus’s move, either, except to continue staring at him from a reduced distance.

“Afternoon,” said Albus uncertainly.

“Afternoon,” the man echoed. His accent was American, though Albus was not familiar enough with it to identify whether it was natural or merely a passable imitation. In either case, he did not react to Albus’s own accent, which was a little unusual.

“Where are you headed?” he asked, hoping for more clues.

His neighbour continued smiling vaguely. “Manhattan. And you?”

“The same,” said Albus.

“Let me guess…” said the stranger, finally speaking first. “Are you a teacher?”

Albus scrutinised his brown eyes again. “Yes, I am. How did you know?”

He grinned. “Magic.”

Albus groaned internally. If this _was_ Merlin, he was going to have words with him later. These antics were making him into a paranoiac.

“What part of London are you from?” the stranger asked. “Scotland?”

Albus openly glared at him now. This was _definitely_ Merlin, and he was _definitely_ messing with him, but… was it? There was really no indication at all that this was anything but a particularly obnoxious American. Still…

“No,” said Albus with a smile. “Ealdor.”

This seemed to amuse the man, though Albus couldn’t say why with any real certainty.

“I’m John,” the stranger said, extending a hand. “What’s your name?”

“Albus,” he said, not bothering to lie.

“Interesting name,” the other man replied noncommittally. “My uncle had a name like that—Roman, or something.”

Albus struggled to recall whether Merlin had ever told him the name of his uncle.

“Well,” said the man, standing up and moving toward the doors, “this is my stop up here. Nice meeting you.”

Perhaps it really _wasn’t_ him. If it wasn’t, he prayed the real Merlin never heard about this.

“Yeah,” said Albus, a little disappointed. “You too.”

The car came to a halt, and the stranger stepped through the doors with a final, “See you around, Al.”

It took Albus a second to consider that no one, no matter how American, would arbitrarily shorten ‘Albus’ to ‘Al’ within five minutes of meeting him.

It took him another second to realise that they weren’t anywhere near Manhattan yet.

He was off the subway and chasing after that bastard of a warlock in three seconds flat.

* * *

A few weeks later, Albus returned to Britain with a broken blood pact, a handful of vials filled with a cloudy silver substance, and a large empty basin.

He had promised to take the vials, keep them safe but hidden, and never, ever look at them. The basin was his to use as he pleased.

He kept his promise for a few years before he took out one vial, chosen at random, and poured it into the basin.

The rest would sit in the back of Albus’s cupboard, untouched, for the rest of his life.

* * *

_January 1950 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland_

There were four cats sitting on Albus’s desk. The first one was Miss Norris, of course. The second one was probably Minerva McGonagall, judging by the spectacle-like markings around her eyes. The fourth might have been a Kneazle, and was grey in colour. The fourth… The fourth was black and white, very small, with bright blue eyes and tufted ears—just like all of the various small, black animals that had lurked around Albus’s house when he was a child.

Albus glared suspiciously at the fourth cat. Both of them were too old for this nonsense.

Instead of playing Merlin’s little game, he turned to the tabby and said kindly, “Good morning, Miss McGonagall. I do hope you’re not hiding from the Slytherins again.”

Suddenly, a bespectacled thirteen-year-old girl was sitting on the edge of his desk.

“I’m not _hiding_ ,” she said as she jumped down. “But, having just beat the snot out of them all last week on the pitch, I don’t particularly feel like doing it again today, in the middle of the corridor.”

“And did you, by any chance, inform them of this?”

She looked offended. “Of course! If you won’t say it to their faces, why say anything at all?”

“Of course,” Albus agreed mildly. “So, who are your friends here?”

“Right!” she said, pushing her glasses back up with one finger. “Well, that’s Miss Norris, of course. We don’t get along all that well, but she insisted on coming along—I don’t really mind, I suppose. Then there’s Lint, my friend’s cat, she’s nice. And this is a boy cat I met on the grounds. I’m… not sure if he goes here.”

The suspiciously Merlin-looking cat just stared benignly up at Albus.

“I see,” he said. “He wouldn’t happen to have miraculously appeared right as the Slytherin team cornered you, would he?”

She raised her eyebrows. “In fact, he did. Last time, too, except that was the Ravenclaws. He’s a very good listener, you know.”

“I see,” he said again, strolling behind his desk to the blackboard, where he picked up his pointer.

Quickly, before any of the various cats could make a run for it, he circled back and tapped the black cat on the head with the long stick (lightly—he was a little fellow, after all).

“I know it’s you,” he said sternly. “Now get down off the desk.”

The cat blinked at him. McGonagall shot him a concerned look.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be, is it?”

_If it’s not him, I’m going to look like the world’s biggest idiot._

Insistently, Albus rapped the stick on the desk a few more times, annoying the other cats.

“Go on, change back now. Neither of us have time for your games—do we, Miss McGonagall?”

“No,” she said, playing along and smothering a grin. “No games, Mr. Cat.”

The cat twitched an ear.

“I mean it,” said Albus. “You’re not fooling me this time, old man. I know Transfiguration when I see it, and your ears stick out no matter what form you take.”

Minerva giggled—then gasped when a disgruntled-looking teenage boy appeared in the cat’s place, leaning against the desk.

“That was uncalled for, Dumbledore,” he said, ostentatiously feigning outrage. “They’re perfectly nice ears, don’t you think, Miss McGonagall?”

“Yeah!” she said, hands on her hips. “Yeah, why not?”

Merlin shot Albus a triumphant look.

“As you can see,” said Albus, “most Animagi—and often self-Transfigured witches and wizards, too—share one or two distinctive traits with their other forms.”

“Like his hair?” she asked.

“Quite!”

Grinning, she turned back to Merlin. “So…” she asked, “ _do_ you go here?”

“Not anymore,” he said. “I’m an old student of A—er—Dumbledore’s, and I came to visit.”

Albus harrumphed. As if _he_ was the annoying old man in this relationship.

“That’s nice,” she said, undeterred. “What do you do now?”

“I’m a Healer.”

Albus went back to grading papers.

“Really? You look a little young for that. You must have been good in school.”

“Not at first, but I got my act together eventually. You, on the other hand—Dumbledore has told me you’re one of his best students. And an Animagus already, too! Did you always know you were going to be a cat, or did you think you might be something else?”

“I dunno… I was sort of hoping to be a bird, but I quite like cats, actually.”

“So do I,” said Merlin, allowing Miss Norris to climb onto his shoulders. “S’pose it’s too bad cats can’t fly, eh?”

“They can now!” she said proudly. “I’m a Quidditch player, you see.”

“Really! What position?”

They went on like that for half an hour at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was a bit of a mixed bag. The next chapter will be a more solidly cheerful one, if it helps to have that to look forward to.
> 
> Also, you may have noticed I've decreased the chapter count to 22, but that's only because I'm planning to separate out the last couple of chapters into a different work in this series because they're a little different. The story's not over yet!
> 
> One final note: Sorry I've been falling a bit behind on replying to your comments. I've been reading them all, but hopefully I can set aside a bigger chunk of time to catch up on replying soon. I just want to take this opportunity to say that I will reply to everyone, and also to thank all of you for your comments, kudos, and general support, all of which brighten my day every time I see them. Thank you, and I hope you have a great Monday!


	19. Assorted telephone calls - 1953 to 1979

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got another slightly different sort of chapter this time--I hope you enjoy it! And the return to the regular 'Harry Potter' era will be coming up soon...

_October 1953_

“Er, who is this?”

“Ah, Merlin, good. I see you’ve finally got around to fixing your telephone.”

“What? No, no, the listening part’s still broken.”

“What do you mean, the listening part? Are you still using a telephone from the nineteenth century?”

“Oh, don’t say it like that, the nineteenth century wasn’t that long ago. Besides, I already told you, I haven’t got it fixed, so no, I’m not using it.”

“How did you answer my call, then?”

“Just picked it up. Startled me right out of my skin, I can tell you that.”

“Merlin.”

“Yes?”

“On what instrument, precisely, are we having this conversation?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t _know_ you were calling me on the bloody lamp. Clearly, it’s spent too much time around the telephone. All the new-fangled spells these days, honestly. Make me look like a fool, wandering all over the house trying to find the source of the ringing sound. The neighbours must think I’ve finally gone ‘round the bend. Don’t know why you can’t just use the telephone, Albus, I’ve told you I’d get it fixed. Albus?… Al?… Ahoy?”

* * *

_January 1959_

“Oh, good, there you are, hey, you know that beau of yours—”

“Don’t call him that.”

“—the blond one, better accent than mine—well, at the time, anyway. I do think mine’s got better since then, but it’s not as if I can really ask anyone—”

“Merlin, are you talking about _Grindelwald_?”

“Yes, yes, that was his name. Anyhow, I was just thinking, I made this wand a while back—I was hoping I’d be able to use it without it exploding or coming alive or something, but of course, no. Anyway, I’ve been looking all over the house, and I can’t find it anywhere. I think I misplaced it, or possibly let someone borrow it, can’t quite remember—and while we’re at it, have you seen the invisibility cloak? I mean, not _seen_ , obviously, the damn thing’s impossible to find, dunno why I bothered with it in the first place, far more of a nuisance than it’s worth—Oh, right, the wand. I think I gave it to a wandmaker as a sort of sample, you know, so he could make more like it or something, and then your—I mean, that young Austrian fellow, he was going on about some unbeatable wand, which it isn’t, but—”

“I have it.”

“Sorry?”

“The wand, Merlin. I have it. You’re right, Gellert had it for a while, but I won it when I duelled him.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right then.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

…“I couldn’t tell you anything about the cloak, though.”

“Oh, it’ll turn up somewhere, I suppose.”

* * *

_August 1963_

“Hey, Albus, I’m on television! Never been on the television before!”

“Wonderful, another way for you to get caught. Why are you on television? What did you do?”

“I didn’t _do_ anything, don’t take that tone with me, young man, I’m just trying to do my part over here in America. Seeing as how they still haven’t fixed any of this nonsense, people are starting to take a stand for equal rights. I mean, the schools, for one thing—"

“Merlin, for the last time, I am eighty-two years old. If you call me ‘young man’ one more time—”

“Yeah, well, I’m still fifteen times older than you, so you’ve got some catching up to do yet. You’re probably right about the television, though, maybe I should try and make myself all blurry—”

_CRASH_

“… Merlin?”

“That did… not have the desired effect. Don’t, er—don’t try that one yourself.”

“Why would I do such a thing.”

“Well, I’d better go, got quite a ways to go still. Wish Gwen could see this! Well, everyone, really, but especially Gwen, she was always trying to tell Arthur about bias, but he wouldn’t listen, stubborn prat. Anyway, bye!”

“What? _Queen_ Guinevere? Why ‘especially Gwen’? … Merlin? … Hello?”

* * *

_October 1962_

“Merlin.”

“Ah, Albus… thought I might be hearing from you.”

“You know what’s been going on in Cuba, then.”

“I’m afraid so. I take it your people are trying to talk some sense into the Americans, at least?”

“There are Aurors in New York now, but the President is proving uncooperative at best.”

“Yes, I’ve gathered that. It seems like they’re inventing a new, bigger weapon every few years now, doesn’t it?”

“Merlin, if this gets out of hand… can you stop it?”

“To tell you the truth, Albus, I’m not entirely sure. But I fear we’ll find out soon enough. I’m here in Turkey now—figure I’ll have a better chance of sabotaging them from here than stopping them once they’re in the air, if it comes to that.”

“I think now might be a convenient time to spend a few weeks away from England myself—somewhere warm, I think. Perhaps at least one of us will have some luck.”

“In that case, Albus… I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Indeed. Make sure you stop by Hogwarts when we both return home.”

“Wouldn’t miss it, old friend.”

* * *

_July 1969_

“ALBUS! ARE YOU AWAKE?”

“Bloody—what— _No_ , Merlin!”

“What? Why aren’t you awake? Are you seeing this—”

“Good lord, it’s four in the morning…”

“ _Look_ at this, Albus, you have to see it!”

“Merlin the Great is calling me at four in the morning—”

“I can’t believe it! Turn on the television, for Avalon’s sake—”

“—Can’t believe I ever thought you weren’t real. I miss those days.”

“They’re on the bloody _moon_ , Albus, the Muggles are on the _moon!_ ”

“I’m sure they’ll air it again tomorrow.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it, not in a thousand years—"

“Merlin, are you _crying_?”

“What part of _‘on_ the _moon’_ did you not—”

“All right. All right, Merlin, I’m tuning in.”

“… Isn’t it incredible?”

* * *

_July 1971_

“Hello?”

“I see you’ve finally learned the correct way to answer a phone.”

“Are you calling just to harass me now? Clearly, you have far too much time on your hands now you’re headmaster, I ought to come down there and cause a few problems—”

“All right, never mind, say ‘ahoy’ all you want. But I am, in fact, calling for a reason.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“There’s a boy with lycanthropy who’s going to be enrolling at Hogwarts this term.”

“An eleven-year-old? Bloody hell…”

“I’m afraid so. I’ve made what accommodations I can with Madam Pomfrey, the mediwitch, but we need somewhere safe for him to go when he transforms… Well, in short, I could use your help procuring some sort of territorial creature, enchanted statue, that sort of thing…”

“What about a tree?”

“What? I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the—”

“Yeah, a territorial tree. One that, for example, just off the top of my head, wallops anything that happens to get within three feet of it?”

“Erm. Well, I suppose that would have the desired effect, but there obviously needs to be some way to get past it…”

“Well, normally, I just shout at it, but I think I can work something else out.”

“Are you certain it’s safe?”

“Well, no. That is rather the point, isn’t it? But if I can find some sort of trick to it…”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. But how do you plan to get it here?”

“Oh, let me worry about that. Frankly, I’ve been looking for a better home for the poor thing for a while now. It started out bullying the other trees, so I had to move things around out there, and now it’s just whacking anything that happens to fly by. Including me.”

“That does sound inconvenient.”

“Yeah. Er, on an unrelated note, maybe don’t send me any owls for the time being.”

“Noted.”

* * *

_May 1979_

“Hey, dude.”

“… I’m hanging up.”

“No, wait, Albus, what is it?”

“Where are you?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“You’re right, I’m sure I don’t. Well, I was just calling to tell you I found your cloak.”

“… What cloak?”

“The invisibility cloak? The one you misplaced, _apparently_ , in the 13th century?”

“Really, that long ago? Could’ve sworn I just had it…”

“Well, I suppose you’ve heard of Ignotius Peverell?”

“Oh, yeah, him. Clever boy. Had an older brother who was a bit of an arse.”

“Two, in fact.”

“Oh, that’s right. The lot of them were convinced I was some sort of deity, but they could never agree on which.”

“It appears they eventually settled on Death.”

“Is that so? Wonder whether I should be offended.”

“The point is, however Peverell obtained the cloak, he passed it down through his family and it now belongs to James Potter.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“I don’t suppose you want that back either, do you?”

“Hm? No, s’pose not. Honestly, I sort of forgot about it. Besides, I can see through it anyway.”

“You can?”

“Yeah, and so can my eye, probably. That one I gave you, I mean. After the Great War.”

“Yes, I remember. Actually, about that…”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.”


	20. October 1974 – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

It was about eight a.m. on a Sunday when a pile of Slytherins ran screaming out of their dungeon, tripping all over each other and screaming about a dragon. They also came very close to bowling Albus over as he was leaving the office of the head of Slytherin House.

The professor in question quickly shuffled off after his students, calling, “Where? What’s going on?”

“Dragon!” a boy shouted back.

“In the lake!” another added.

Once all of them had rounded the corner and the back-and-forth screaming of teacher and students was beginning to recede into the distance, Albus took a detour upstairs and out onto the grounds, walking as fast as he dared while still maintaining a general air of mysterious nonchalance.

He had intended, obviously, to check on the status of the Black Lake and attempt to discern what manner of creature had terrified the sparse collection of Slytherins who had been studying in the common room at eight a.m. on a Sunday. However, when he discovered a motley collection of older students gathered around the Whomping Willow, he quickly decided that that merited some investigation first.

And, to his complete unsurprise, at the centre of the fray stood a tall, thin man with wild salt-and-pepper hair, shouting at a tree. Albus allowed himself a loud sigh before he got within hearing range.

“You’re nature!” Merlin was scolding the Whomping Willow, waving a finger at it. “You don’t attack other nature! It’s just plain rude. And besides, birds are tiny compared to you; you can’t be rough with them. Play ni—oh, hello, Albus!”

“Good morning,” said Albus calmly, doing his best to ignore the murmurings of the onlookers. “Care to explain why you are berating the foliage?”

Merlin crossed his arms. “The tree knows what it did.”

“Is that so,” said Albus. “Students, if you would make your way back to the castle, please… out of striking distance…”

As he gently but firmly herded them back in the other direction, Merlin continued whispering furiously at the tree while its knobbly arms swung slowly but irritably through the air.

“What’s going on?” Albus asked once the students were all trudging away and muttering amongst themselves. “It’s eight o’clock and you’ve already caused two crises.”

Merlin snorted. “I don’t see any crises. I’m just here to discipline the tree.”

“You wouldn’t know the tree needed ‘disciplining’ if you weren’t here. What do you really want?”

Merlin gave the tree one last glare before shoving his hands in his pockets and strolling off toward the Black Lake. Albus rolled his eyes and followed.

“Don’t get your beard in a knot,” Merlin replied. “Just thought I’d come by and renew the wards. Haven’t done it in almost a century now—and it was much more difficult last time, when I had to attempt to explain to the headmaster what I was doing.”

“Then why have I been hearing about a dragon in the lake?”

“I’m about to fix that,” said Merlin quickly. “Aithusa’s a fan of mermaids. I mean, at fifteen hundred, what do you expect?”

“I doubt the mermaids are ‘fans’ of dragons.”

“Don’t be rude. You’ve never met in person; you don’t want to make a bad impression.”

“We’ve never met at _all_ ,” Albus replied. “Bombarding me with photos of your dragon child does not qualify as a real introduction.”

“Don’t exaggerate, it’s unbecoming.”

The two of them slowed as they approached the water’s edge.

As they waited, Albus spoke again. “You know, you don’t actually need an excuse every time you visit Hogwarts.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Merlin.

“I—”

“Aithusa!” he shouted. “Are you done in there? Hurry up before people start milling about out here.”

There was a series of heavy ripples across the surface before a white nose and two large blue eyes rose out of the water, not unlike a crocodile, and scanned their surroundings.

“The coast is clear,” said Merlin, “but not for long. Why don’t you go hang out in the forest while I work up here? You could visit Aragog.”

“I knew it,” Dumbledore muttered.

Aithusa’s head lifted some more, exposing a slender neck curved rather like a swan’s.

“I don’t mind Aragog,” said a booming voice from between deadly fangs. “But in my personal opinion, a thousand children is a few too many. And while we’re talking of it, eight legs is rather too many, as well.”

“The centaurs, then. Just to get out of sight for a little while. You’re rather large and noticeable, you know.”

“Are you calling me fat?” said the dragon.

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Well, at least you can finally meet Albus here. He’s headmaster now.”

Aithusa squinted down at them. “He looks like you.”

“We’re not supposed to talk about that,” said Merlin quickly.

Albus glared at him. “It is an honour to meet you,” he told the dragon.

“Er,” said Aithusa. “You too.”

Merlin sighed.

“What?” said the dragon. “How am I supposed to respond to that?”

“You’re _supposed_ to say something mysterious, profound and vaguely threatening.”

“That sounds like it would require more forethought than I’m prepared to put in,” Aithusa replied, idly tapping at the water’s surface with one giant claw. “What am I, a sphinx? I’ll just be a chill sort of dragon. I think people will appreciate that.”

Merlin shrugged. “Well, who am I to stop you? Just go be chill in the forest for a while, will you, please?”

The dragon sighed in a great gust of wind and trudged out of the water, causing a veritable rainstorm to briefly fall upon the two humans. “All right, all right. Come get me when you’re done. Bring Albus along if you want, he seems cool.”

“ _’Cool’?_ ” said Merlin incredulously.

“Cool…” said Aithusa, already walking away. “Groovy… copacetic… far out…”

“Stop throwing slang at me!” Merlin shouted at the dragon’s retreating back. “Where did you even hear those?”

“Right on, man…”

“Cut that out!”

Whatever Aithusa said next was lost to the distance. Dragons could walk remarkably fast, as it turns out.

“Interesting,” said Albus.

“I’m convinced Aithusa’s been watching television,” Merlin grumbled. “It’s ‘stupid’ if I watch it, but there’s always a giant eye at the window after a while. Didn’t think dragons could push buttons…”

“Let’s just hope no one saw all that,” said Albus. “Come, let’s get back to the castle before the corridors are full of students. If you’re going to be roaming the halls all day, will you at least get a few decades younger? I would rather not spend the next several hours explaining your presence to everyone whose path you cross.”

+++

Unfortunately, Albus did not have the foresight to realise that having Merlin run around Hogwarts as a teenager was likely to result in him _acting_ like a teenager. Therefore, when the self-styled ‘Marauders’ pulled their most ambitious prank of that year, Albus was woefully unprepared.

Honestly, he would have appreciated at least a heads-up.

So, not only did he now have to find a way to fix _gravity_ , he also had to do it while traversing the ceiling and without being able to access any of his belongings, which were for some reason still abiding by the laws of physics. Well, at least it meant nothing had been broken. For the first hour and a half, he had searched futilely the castle for Merlin—who, now that he thought of it, was probably using a disguise Albus wouldn’t recognise, and thereby wasting even more of his time. Eventually, he also gave up on reaching anything in his office and (with difficulty) climbed back out to go help the rest of the staff wrangle the most riotous of students.

It was at this point that a particularly foolish child decided to attempt to go outside. To the boy’s disappointment, rather than falling into the sky, he merely tumbled to the ground, then walked back inside normally, apparently cured of his ‘being stuck to the ceiling’ syndrome.

After that, it was admittedly rather difficult to coerce all the students into giving up their newfound abilities, but by the evening, most of the students had been successfully re-gravified. Potter and Black (as well as, presumably, Merlin) were still evading capture, but at least Pettigrew and Lupin had already been found hiding in the rafters.

Fortunately, the spell wore off eventually.

Unfortunately, that meant that some of that evening’s dinner was spoiled when Potter and Black fell unceremoniously onto the Slytherin table (filthy, but largely unharmed) in the midst of attempting some last-minute prank.


	21. June 1996 – The Ministry of Magic, London, England

Wonderful. Now Merlin was here too. He’d take care of everything, sure, but he’d be insufferable about it.

“All right,” he said, standing in the middle of the destroyed room, Aithusa behind him, tea in hand. “Who touched the Veil.”

Merlin then proceeded to call Tom Riddle a goth and a creep, call Albus ‘Al’ in front of the entire Order, and destroy all eight pieces of Riddle’s soul in the span of about ten minutes.

Albus really tried not to be annoyed.

He did his best to rein in the Ministry people that Merlin had just revealed himself to (he really _had_ become awfully reckless since perfecting that secrecy spell of his) while the man himself went downstairs with the children (and the Maledictus) to retrieve Sirius Black from the Veil. Of course, Fudge was not pleased. He was also reluctant to believe Merlin was who he said he was, but Albus didn’t particularly care, and doubted Merlin would, either.

The Order was Albus’s main concern. They knew he sometimes kept information to himself, but the existence of the Prince of Enchanters? This would require a meeting, at the very least. Albus promised to explain everything soon and sent them all to wait at Grimmauld Place; for his part, he was going downstairs to check on Merlin, who was taking a worryingly long time.

He took the lift down, muttering irritably to himself to get it all out of his system before meeting with Merlin and the students.

“You take that back!” he heard Merlin squawk as he approached. “I haven’t come to _you_ to complain about all the Dementors that’ve been sneaking out under your nose, so why are you blaming me for the stupidity of the living? I can’t be held responsible for that!”

“You are Emrys,” said a bored voice. “You are the guardian of all living creatures. If you don’t want them wandering through to the other side, put up a fence.”

Turning the corner, Albus saw the students, absent Nagini, gathered in a confused huddle behind Merlin, who seemed to be arguing with an old woman standing in front of the Veil. She looked rather sombre—wearing dark, heavy clothes, a hood, and a weary expression—but she had the distinct (and familiar) air of a person whose only available entertainment was Merlin. Albus had seen it on many a portrait at Hogwarts.

Merlin groaned. “Ugh, work with me here! In case you haven’t noticed, our realms _border_ each other, so I think it’s important to have a good working relationship.”

The old woman sighed, like a distant wind, and asked, “Who is this person that you want returned?”

“Sirius Black,” he answered. “He fell in not more than an hour ago.”

“Fell—?” She stopped, sighed again, and turned around to go back through the Veil. “I will return shortly, Emrys. Do not forget your promise.”

Merlin snorted. “When have I ever?”

As soon as she was gone, the students started murmuring amongst themselves, and Albus drew closer to Merlin to ask, “What did you promise her?”

“Said I’d round up some Dementors. Don’t ask for details, you might want some plausible deniability.”

“Noted.”

“I have located the human,” said a resonant voice.

The old woman had returned, bearing in her arms a dark-haired man who should have been far too heavy for her to carry.

“Thank you,” said Merlin. “I won’t forget.”

He leaned down toward Sirius and murmured a melodic incantation, something Albus rarely saw him do, and colour seemed to return to Sirius’s face as he began to stir. Merlin helped him to stand up as the old woman returned the Veil without the slightest of glances behind her, soon disappearing into the mist.

“Sirius,” said Merlin, still half-supporting him as Harry inched closer, eyeing the two of them uncertainly. “Can you hear me?”

“Who’re you?” Sirius slurred, squinting up into Merlin’s face.

Merlin grinned. “I really don’t think now is the best time for that. Albus, do you have somewhere we can…?”

“The Order is meeting presently at the Black family home,” he replied. “I believe,” he added, nodding to the students, “we all should be in attendance on this particular occasion.”

Merlin shook his head. “All right, fine, I’ll come meet your boy band. At least we can take Sirius home. Come on, then. I’ll Transport us there—I’ve already told Aithusa to go home without me.”

“Transport?” Harry asked, but complied when Merlin gestured for everyone to gather round him.

“Get in close, everyone,” Merlin said, beckoning. “Wouldn’t want to leave any bits of you behind…”

Quite impossible, of course, but everyone obeyed rather quickly after that.

There was a great rush of wind, then the whole group of them appeared in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. Albus knew from experience that Transporting was safer than Apparition in that one was far less likely to materialise inside some solid object, but the others were rather startled by both their sudden appearance and by their proximity. The kitchen was suddenly very crowded.

“You again!” Moody growled, quickly deducing which of them had been responsible for their unconventional means of arrival.

Merlin shot him a cheerful grin in response as he led Sirius to sit down at the table. Still semi-conscious, he allowed himself to be manoeuvred.

“Sirius!” Remus exclaimed, examining him closely as Merlin caused a blanket to appear and draped it over Sirius’s shoulders.

Dumbledore hummed. “I thought you said it was a myth that you were able to resurrect people.”

“That’s not what I said exactly,” said Merlin quickly. “I only said that _particular_ story was fabricated. Geoffrey did so love to embellish things. Besides, this isn’t even really resurrection. He wasn’t quite dead yet, strictly speaking.”

“So you can’t resurrect people.”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

“Then what, precisely, _are_ you saying, Merlin?”

“I’ve told you not to call me that when there are people around.”

“You crash in astride a Great Dragon, kill Tom Riddle, destroy his Horcruxes, announce yourself to the entire Ministry, and expect people not to know it’s you?”

“Would you stop griping already and let me tend to the patient, please?”

It was at this point that Kingsley stepped in, trying to coerce him away from where he was examining Sirius. “I think perhaps we all ought to give Sirius some space until we can determine that everyone is who they say they are.”

Merlin straightened and gave him an unimpressed look. “Does anyone else here have a medical degree?”

The Order exchanged wary looks.

“Well, since I’m the only doctor _and_ the only necromancer in attendance, I’d appreciate it if you let me make sure Mr. Black here is _actually_ alive before the obligatory interrogation begins. Last time somebody came back, he was decidedly _not_ alive, and that didn’t end so well.”

“When was this?” Albus asked.

“You know—Lance. I told you about that.”

“Ah, yes. You were rather protective of his honour.”

“ _And_ Gwen’s!”

“Yes, of course, no need to get defensive…”

“Oh, put a sock in it, why don’t you. Anyway, he’s just fine, aren’t you, Sirius?”

Sirius started slightly, glancing between Merlin and Remus on either side of him. “Yeah… I mean, I feel all right.”

“Good.” Merlin looked around. “You lot have tea or something here? Ought to get something warm in his system, I’d say.”

“Are you actually a doctor?” asked Harry tentatively.

“A doctor, yes, not a Healer,” said Merlin, who had located the kettle without anyone’s help. “One medical license to renew every thirty years is quite enough for me, thank you.”

“How old _is_ that license, by the way?” asked Albus.

“Shut it. I’ve been practicing medicine for fifteen hundred years, I don’t need _your_ infant opinion. Anyway, where’s the rest of your boy band?”

“Stop calling it that. They’re on their way.”

“Excuse me!” Tonks interrupted loudly. “Can we get some answers now?”

“Right.” Merlin handed Sirius his tea. “Go ahead then, I suppose.”

She glanced at the others warily, evidently not having expected it to be so easy.

“Erm…” she said. “So you’re _the_ Merlin, are you? The one from the legends?”

“Yep,” he said, taking a seat near Sirius. Everyone else slowly followed suit, seemingly without realising what they were doing. “I’m the one who gave Arthur the sword in the stone, anyway. I assume that’s what you’re thinking of.”

“I’m sorry,” Moody interrupted sharply, “but I find this a little hard to believe, Albus, even from you.”

Merlin groaned. “Why does this always _take_ so long? This is why I don’t meet your friends, Albus, they’re all so suspicious.”

Albus sat beside him, resigned. “Don’t blame me. You’re the one who pretended to be dead for fourteen centuries, what do you expect?”

“It’s not as if I planned it! I just—” He trailed off, squinting at Moody for a long moment.

“Hang on,” he said, “is that my eye?”

Albus reacted immediately. “Oh, no! Don’t you start with the ‘where’s my wand,’ ‘my cloak,’ ‘my eye’ nonsense. You left it with me for the last sixty-odd years; I’ll do what I want with it.”

Merlin raised his hands in surrender. “Relax, I told you I didn’t want it back, I’m just surprised, that’s all. It’s not every day you find yourself looking into your own eye, you know.”

“It is if you own a mirror.”

“Get off my back about that. What am I, a noblewoman? I know what I look like.”

Albus leaned closer, still staring at him. “Do you? Tell me right now, without looking at your hands, how old you appear to be.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Merlin didn’t break eye contact. He narrowed his eyes. “My back doesn’t hurt,” he said eventually. “And I sound young. No teenagers have harassed me today, though…” He paused, smiled confidently, and declared, “I’m forty.”

“Twenty,” said Albus.

Merlin swore in Brittonic. “I was close.”

“Not particularly.”

“Er, what’s this about an eye?” Remus interjected.

“I lost one in the Great War and gave it to Albus,” Merlin explained. “By the way, are you quite sure that’s sanitary, sticking it in someone else’s head? I was more thinking along the lines of spy gear, if I’m honest…”

Albus rolled his eyes. Great, he was falling back into old habits. “Don’t talk to me about sanitary, old man. Need I bring up Marseille?”

Merlin frowned. “Marseille? I don’t—” He froze, eyes widening. “Nic did _not_ tell you about that! Miscreants, both of you—can’t believe—how was I supposed to know that, anyhow?”

Albus smiled benignly in the face of Professor Emrys’s scowl.

And then somebody knocked over the damn troll leg.

Merlin covered his ears at the screams, shouting over the din, “Bloody hell, tell me that isn’t Walburga!”

“Portrait!” Sirius shouted back.

They rushed into the entrance hall as Merlin called out, “SHUT IT, you old cow!”

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), Merlin’s shouting was effective, and the portrait of Sirius’s mother stopped screaming slurs and abuse. The remaining members of the Order crowded into the hallway to see who had arrived. Severus and Minerva were first, followed by Arthur and Molly Weasley; those who were otherwise occupied would have to be filled in later.

“What’s happened?” asked Minerva. “We received your message, but…”

She frowned at Merlin, evidently wondering who he was, before moving past to see who else was present. Merlin squinted back at her, equally confused. Hopeless, the both of them.

“Ron, Harry—” Molly exclaimed, going to the students. “Why are the children here?”

“Mum, please…” Ron muttered.

“Who is this?” Severus asked, eyeing Merlin suspiciously—no doubt trying and failing to perform Legilimency on him.

“Everyone sit down, please,” said Albus wearily. Once they were all settled, he continued, “It’s true. Lord Voldemort is dead.”

There was a general uproar before Minerva cut through the noise: “How?”

Albus gestured for Merlin to take the floor. Unfortunately, he neither stood up nor explained himself.

“I gave him a ruptured intracranial aneurysm,” he said simply.

Everyone stared blankly.

“Oh,” said Hermione very quietly.

Adjusting her spectacles, Minerva asked, “Are you certain he is gone? He has returned once before.”

Before Albus could respond, Merlin stood up beside him, staring intently.

“Albus, you arse, you never told me Minnie was back at Hogwarts!” he exclaimed, looking positively gleeful. “What do you teach?” he asked her. “Quidditch? Transfiguration? Defence?”

Minerva stood slowly as she scrutinised him—the same boy she had asked after so many times when she was studying at Hogwarts. She used to drop everything when he would come to visit.

“Eldore?” she asked after a moment, voice high with disbelief.

“Erm, yeah… It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Albus sighed and intervened. “Minerva—everyone—this boy is not who he appears to be. His real name—”

“Don’t call me a boy,” Merlin interrupted grouchily, “I’ve known you since before you could read.”

Albus rolled his eyes for the second time in ten minutes. “I could read when I was nine, I’m not an imbecile.”

Merlin squinted at him. “That’s not the first time we met.”

“What—” Albus goggled at him for a second before shelving that for another time. “Never mind. The point is, you are older than you appear to be, _because_ …”

“What, you’re going to make _me_ explain it?”

They glared at each other.

Merlin sighed, turned to the group, and said, “I’m immortal.”

He sat back down.

Albus took a deep breath. “Merlin, I swear to you, I will sell you out to Queen Guinevere’s portrait if I have to! Cooperate, please.”

A few people gasped, but Merlin either didn’t notice or didn’t care, instead turning a golden glare on Albus. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I? She likes me better than you, some days.”

“She _would_ ,” he said churlishly. “Look, I only told the Ministry who I am to scare them a little, it’s not as if I want to tell the entire wizarding world and be harassed everywhere I go for the rest of my immortal life.”

“Well, Minerva deserves to know, at the very least,” Albus maintained.

“Not what you said last time,” Merlin muttered.

“She was twelve.”

“I was fifteen, if I recall.” Minerva interjected.

“Well—” Merlin threw up his hands. “Now you all know. I’m alive. Still.”

When no one responded, he looked unsure. “Er, do you need a demonstration or something to prove I’m me?”

“NO!” everyone unanimously agreed.

“Right then.” Merlin stood up and checked a pocket watch he didn’t have three seconds ago. “It’s long past _everyone’s_ bedtime, especially mine, so can we all go home now?”

Albus piped up before he could disappear. “Just make sure you come by the school tomorrow to collect your Visibility Cloak, will you? You’ve been putting it off for two years now.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Merlin scoffed. “I’ll come by if I have time, all right? Promise.”

“Oh, don’t act like you have anything better to do,” Albus retorted.

“I have a thousand better things to do! The crystals are calling me, the new Druids won’t shut up either, my house has developed an annoying habit of waddling three feet to the left every time I leave, the willows are whomping again and the herd’s probably escaped because the trees won’t stop knocking down the damn fence!”

Albus sniffed.

Harry ventured, “Herd of what?”

Merlin froze.

“Er … sheep.”

* * *

Later that night, at Hogwarts, Harry would ask, “What’s a Visibility Cloak?” and Albus would reply, with an odd sort of satisfaction, by giving Harry the exact response Merlin had given Albus.

“The opposite of an Invisibility Cloak, of course. What else?”


	22. Epilogue: June 1996 - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are, the last chapter! This story was a bit different, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. Thank you for all your comments and kudos, and be sure to look out for the final (for now) little piece of this series that will be uploaded on Friday!

Harry had doubted that any of them would ever see the strange man known as Merlin again, but in fact, it was on a morning only a few days after the incident at the Ministry when he appeared, quite suddenly, in the Entrance Hall at Hogwarts.

“Ah, Harry!” he said when he noticed him leaving the Great Hall after breakfast. “Just the person I wanted to see. Your dogfather can’t leave the house right now, but he told me to tell you that you have an open invitation to stay with him over the summer if you don’t want to go back to the Dursleys.”

Harry glanced jubilantly at Ron and Hermione. “Really? That’s amaz—hang on, my what?”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “He insisted I call him that. Gave me four pounds to do it, actually. By the way, where’s Albus? I have a bone to pick with him.”

“Erm, probably in his—”

“You!” someone shouted. Harry turned to see that the Bloody Baron was barrelling down the hall toward them, and he jumped out of the way to avoid a collision. “You owe me thirty-four pounds, you cheating bastard—Come back here!”

Indeed, Merlin was already leaving, sprinting down the hall in the opposite direction at a surprising speed.

“I can’t believe that’s really _him_ ,” Ron murmured as they watched him go.

“In a good or a bad way?” Harry asked.

Ron looked unsure. “Haven’t decided,” he said eventually.

“ _I_ can’t believe he’s a doctor,” said Hermione. “In a good way.”

Merlin seemed to get continually side-tracked from whatever his actual objective was that day, because Harry, Ron and Hermione had a few more run-ins with him as the otherwise quiet Saturday meandered past. After various ghosts spent all morning attempting to corner him for a wide variety of reasons, Merlin was next seen (or rather, heard) having a shouting match outside the Gryffindor common room. The commotion soon drew the trio, along with Ginny and Neville, outside to investigate, whereupon they discovered the supposedly young man arguing with a portrait in a fortunately deserted hallway.

“I don’t care if you’re Merlin himself,” Sir Cadogan was practically bellowing. “I’ll not let you wander about the corridors unchecked; you’re no student!”

“I _am_ Merlin, you bumbling idiot! Don’t you recognise me?”

“You can’t play me for a fool, young man! I knew Merlin, and he was white of hair, and grouchy, and downright terrifying! You don’t scare me. _And_ he was taller than you!”

Merlin seemed to unconsciously draw himself up to his full height in his indignation. “I _should_ scare you, you dunderhead, _it’s me_. And I know damn well what I look like! Hair loses pigment when you get older, in case you haven’t noticed, but I can still turn you into a toad if you keep nattering on—we’ll see who’s unrecognisable then!”

“You certainly sound like him,” Sir Cadogan shouted back, “always threatening people who’re just doing their jobs, but I can tell you don’t have it in you to do the things he did—leading battles, helping prisoners escape under Uther’s nose, training the knights by springing mace attacks on them, scaring offensive nobles away by lurking ominously in the background—"

“You never met Uther, you charlatan, he would’ve had a slacker like you in the stocks right beside a troublemaker like me! And the knights were getting complacent, that never would’ve been tolerated in my day. What would you have done if a dragon attacked the city again?”

“Called _you!_ ” Cadogan shouted. “The resident Dragonlord!”

Merlin smirked as Cadogan realised the conclusion that his mouth had come to before consulting his brain. The knight’s eyes widened comically, and he leaned in closer as he examined the boy.

“No,” he breathed. “It can’t be you—You’re so scrawny! I don’t believe it…”

Merlin glared. “I don’t _need_ to be bulky,” he growled, “I could squash you like a bug without lifting a finger.”

Harry acknowledged, privately, that he had a point there.

Unfortunately, the students didn’t get to learn any more interesting Camelot trivia on that particular day, because it was at that moment that Mrs. Norris chose to come stalking around the corner, righteous fury in her yellow eyes. All the shouting must have summoned her, and Filch wouldn’t be far behind. Harry was about to warn Merlin, but was utterly taken aback when Mrs. Norris stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the strange young man. She meowed once, and Merlin looked down for the source of the noise. To the astonishment of everyone, he beamed at the ornery cat.

“Nora!” he exclaimed, and knelt down on the stone floor, arms spread wide.

To the continued astonishment of everyone, the cat practically galloped into him, climbing his shirt like a kitten; he held her there as he stood back up, still grinning.

“Don’t be angry,” he said, “of course I was going to come see you while I’m here.”

She meowed.

“Yes, I know discipline has been declining by your standards, but this isn’t the 19th century anymore, you know. I used to whack the occasional student with a stick myself, but I don’t want to appear _too_ medieval, now, do I?”

She mewed again, as if they were having an actual conversation. Harry, however, didn’t find it too very unbelievable that Merlin could communicate with animals, given… everything else about him.

“Is that so?” he said. “Well, I’ll have to meet him, then.”

Another chirp.

“Now, don’t be too hard on young Albus, he was just a little wary of you because he thought you were an undead cat or something. … Don’t look at me like that. Those boys are like sons to me, you be nice to them.”

Mrs. Norris sneezed.

Merlin sighed. “Oh, don’t you start about the goats again, it’s not that bad. Honestly, the perpetual tavern smell is worse.”

A wheezing sound from around the corner was their only warning before Mr. Filch arrived on scene, predictably.

“Oi!” he shouted, or tried to. “Hands off Mrs. Norris!”

Merlin ignored him, addressing the cat instead. “Oh, you’re a ‘Mrs.’ now, are you? And you say the students aren’t properly afraid of you…”

He smiled and let the cat down. Rather than running back to Filch, though, she sat between the two men, glancing warningly at both of them.

“Don’t look at me,” said Merlin. “I did tell you to take good care of the Squibs while I’m not here, and it seems like you’re keeping the troublemakers on their toes, too. I’ve got no problem.”

She meowed at Filch instead, then.

“Who’s this?” Filch asked her.

Harry shook his head, exchanging a befuddled glance with the others. Fortunately, Sir Cadogan seemed to have wandered off (or run off) in the interim, so at least _he_ wasn’t contributing to this ridiculous pseudo-conversation.

And then Peeves arrived.

* * *

Harry thought it safe to assume that, with the death of Voldemort, his journeys into the Pensieve with Dumbledore would end, but that didn’t mean it would be a good idea to miss a previously scheduled appointment. So, that evening, he hesitantly returned to the headmaster’s office, expecting to be dismissed.

Instead, Professor Dumbledore called, as usual, “Enter.”

When Harry opened the door, Merlin was there, lounging sideways in Dumbledore’s chair, apparently in the middle of a conversation.

“All I’m saying,” he said to Dumbledore, who was busying himself with a cabinet across the room, “is that if you run into a bloke during a tavern brawl, take him home, rescue him from another brewing tavern brawl, and then after he gets banished, the next time you run into him is during yet another tavern brawl, that may be indicative of a larger problem. Hey, Harry. I mean, that’s just life advice right there.”

“Yes, well, I did not, evidently, need to learn that particular lesson the hard way,” Dumbledore replied.

“I’ve had entirely enough of your sass, Albus, but that’s beside the point. The point is, if Gwaine had had his own tavern to run, I bet he would’ve shaped up in a rush. I think it does a body some good to be on the other end of the equation, you know what I mean?”

Dumbledore sighed. “It is not, strictly speaking, the pub’s ownership to which I object; it is merely the company he keeps.”

“Oh, lay off him about the goats, Albus, everyone needs a hobby.”

“Might we resume this discussion later?” said Dumbledore pointedly. “I have an appointment.”

“We’ll have a ‘discussion’ about your use of the word ‘discussion’,” Merlin muttered, but got up anyway. “Bye, Harry. Albus. I’ll be at Abe’s if you need me.”

“Fine,” Dumbledore replied, resuming his seat behind the desk and gesturing for Harry to sit across from him. “Thank you, Harry,” he added as soon as the door had clicked shut. “You have just provided me with a very convenient excuse.”

“Erm,” said Harry, glancing behind him. “Who’s Abe?”

“He owns the Hog’s Head Inn, in Hogsmeade,” said Dumbledore. “But you are not here about that. While our ‘lessons,’ shall we say, have come to an abrupt end along with Tom Riddle, I do have one final memory to show you. I believe it may be of help to you in the future.”

Standing, he beckoned Harry over to the Pensieve. “It was Merlin who gave me this Pensieve, in fact,” he said. “It is not unique, but they are relatively rare—and this particular version is somewhat unusual. He is, as you might imagine, a man with an excess of memories. This particular memory, however, is mine.”

The basin was already filled with the familiar cloudy liquid, which seemed to dissipate in a slight fog as the two of them entered the memory.

An old man in brown robes was sitting on a fallen tree in the middle of the woods. His hair and beard were long and pure white, and though he was quite tall, his back was slightly curved, betraying his great age.

At first, Harry thought this was Dumbledore himself; but as he stepped around the log to stand in front of the man, the face that he saw was different. Like Dumbledore’s, his eyes were bright blue—a colour that struck Harry, for some reason, as exactly the same shade as the sky—but his face was almost gaunt, cheekbones prominent despite his beard, and he looked, somehow, even older than Professor Dumbledore. He also looked distantly familiar, as if Harry had perhaps seen him in one of the Hogwarts portraits.

But as Harry moved closer to look, he finally spied the other figure. A few metres behind the old man, there was a little boy crouching among some trees, almost totally obscured by the underbrush except for a shock of red hair. Looking back at the old man, Harry was sure he knew the boy was sneaking around behind him, and probably had for quite some time. He seemed, however, quite content to wait and see what the child did. In fact, he did not move so much as an inch as the boy furtively (but still rather loudly) crunched around in the forest nearby, sneaking progressively closer. The old man merely sat serenely, watching the forest before him as if absorbing its beauty.

Eventually, the boy did approach. When he finally stepped out from behind the trees, Harry was startled by his extremely old-fashioned clothing, consisting of what looked sort of like a miniature suit, except that rather than trousers, he wore shorts and high stockings. The boy, who could not be more than six or seven years old, crept toward the old man carefully; but, seeming to decide that there was nothing to fear, he approached and sat beside him on the log. The old man did not act as if he had noticed anything at all. The boy, observing him shrewdly, did not say anything either for a few long moments.

The old man finally looked down at the boy with a smile that seemed to transform his entire face; and it was only then that Harry recognised him. That was the same carefree, genuine smile that he had seen on the face of the young boy who had crashed into the Ministry astride a dragon and solved all of Harry’s problems. This was Merlin himself. Which meant—

“Good morning,” said Merlin. “And who might you be?”

The little red-haired boy straightened up and proudly said, “I’m Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.”

Merlin raised an eyebrow. “That’s a very large name for a very small boy. I’m afraid I only have one, myself.”

“That’s all right,” said the little Dumbledore. “What is it?”

Merlin considered. “I could tell you,” he said, “or we could play a game for it instead.”

The boy perked up. “What sort of game?”

“It’s a very simple game. You get… five guesses. And if you guess right, you’ve won. If you don’t, I win.”

The child narrowed his eyes. “What do I win, _if_ I win?”

“It’s a surprise,” said Merlin easily.

“Then… I should get a hint, too. It’s only fair.”

Merlin grinned. “All right. If you haven’t guessed correctly by the third try, I’ll give you a hint.”

“But it has to be a good hint!”

“I promise.”

“Then I’ll play,” Dumbledore agreed.

Merlin nodded, then turned to look straight into the boy’s eyes. With a jolt, suddenly remembering his lessons, Harry wondered whether Merlin was trying to test the child’s innate ability as a Legilimens.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” was Dumbledore’s first judicious guess.

Merlin laughed out loud, then shook his head.

Dumbledore frowned. “Well, what about John, then?”

Despite his age, he was making relatively reasoned guesses, but that might not get him anywhere in this particular case. Harry began to wonder whether this was actually how Dumbledore had learned of Merlin’s identity—they _had_ mentioned something about the twenties…

Merlin shook his head again.

“Percival?” Dumbledore said, guessing that they might share a name.

“No,” said Merlin. “But you’re getting closer. All right, here’s your hint: I’m named after an animal.”

Dumbledore frowned. “Erm, Leo?”

“No, it’s a real English word.”

“…Robin?”

Merlin shook his head. “No, that’s not it either. But you got very close.”

“Still lost, though,” Dumbledore huffed.

“You didn’t lose,” said Merlin, “you came in second.”

The boy scoffed.

“It’s basic maths,” Merlin retorted. “So, do you want to see what second place wins, or not?”

Dumbledore looked suspicious for a moment, but finally gave in and nodded eagerly.

Merlin paused for a few moments. “ _The creatures of the forest will be friends to you,_ ” he pronounced in a faraway voice; “ _of seas, of air, and of mountains too. You’ll win the heart of the Phoenix true, and from him earn the gift of few: of life prolonged and health renewed._ ”

The old man’s eyes flickered gold; he blinked, and the light of his magic faded away along with the absent look. He turned back to the red-headed boy, who was watching him with curiosity.

“That’s a nice poem,” he said eventually.

Merlin spluttered. “It’s not a poem! Don’t you know a prophecy when you hear one?”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“I’m six,” said the boy.

Merlin harrumphed. “You won’t be six forever,” he said warningly, and Harry had to stifle a laugh at the absurd, vaguely threatening tone.

“Yes, I do know how time works, thank you,” the little Dumbledore retorted.

Merlin raised an eyebrow at him, but he looked amused under all that.

“I think we’re going to get along, you and I,” he said softly, and before either Harry or Dumbledore could wonder whether that was another prophecy, Merlin shook his head and said, “Well, I suppose you want a real prize, eh? Not that silly old poem.”

The boy tried to disguise his eagerness, but Merlin merely chuckled and, with an air of ceremony, held out his clasped hands.

Before revealing what was held between them, he asked, “Do you know what _your_ name means, little Dumbledore?”

Frowning, the boy shook his head.

“You might ask your father about it when you get home,” said Merlin.

Carefully, he held his palm out flat and showed the little boy an even littler object in his hand. Harry and the child both had to inch closer to see it. Sitting upright in Merlin’s palm was a tiny figurine cut from white wood—a life-sized bumblebee, with tiny legs and practically translucent wings, and even the appearance of fuzz on its little body.

“Go ahead,” said Merlin. “You won’t break it; it’s made of sturdier stuff than that.”

Carefully, the boy picked it up between two fingers and held it closer to his curious blue eyes.

“It’s so intricate,” he said quietly. “Did you make it?”

“I did,” said Merlin. “But it’s not just decoration. You see, if you’re ever in danger—if you’re in trouble and have nowhere else to turn—you tell that bee all about it, and when you’re not looking, he’ll come to life and fly away, and he’ll bring back someone who can help you.”

Dumbledore seemed to believe him, because he nodded solemnly and closed a gentle fist around the figurine. “Thank you, mister,” he said.

“No need,” said Merlin. “Now, you’d better run home: I think I hear your mother calling for you.”

Dumbledore frowned and looked behind him, listening intently. While the boy was turned away, Harry saw Merlin smile fondly at the boy one last time before abruptly disappearing into thin air, with only a slight breeze to mark his departure.

When the little Dumbledore turned around again to discover that the old man was gone, he looked around for any trace of him, but it was as if he had never even been there. Once more, he looked at the bee carving held in his tiny hand; it was still there, safe and sound. He glanced around the forest one last time before running off in the other direction, back toward home.

Harry blinked quickly when he found himself back in Dumbledore’s office, re-adjusting more slowly to his surroundings. He met the real Dumbledore’s eyes again, and suddenly couldn’t hold back a grin.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” he snorted.

“Yes, well,” said Professor Dumbledore, returning to sit at his desk, “what was I supposed to think? Playing silly games from the very beginning…”

“Was that really a prophecy?” Harry asked as he sat across from him. “Or was it a spell?”

Dumbledore looked at him over his half-moon glasses. “I don’t know,” he said simply.

The headmaster told him a number of other stories about Merlin, that evening. Harry wouldn’t have believed half of them if he hadn’t already met the man himself, in all his peculiar glory. As he left the office later than expected, one of the innumerable devices and knick-knacks cluttering the room caught his eye: a tiny white bumblebee carving which sat near his desk, not far from Fawkes’s perch.


End file.
